It's a 16" Meade Starfinder that began life as a plain Dob but has been rebuilt onto a heavy duty Go_To mount with a brand new Bartels system of Steppers on both axes (and provision within the circuitry for either a motorised focuser or field rotator at the eyepiece and a spare stepper motor if you decide to use it that way). These things are not small. It has a FL of 1830 and that makes it a good f4.5 or thereabouts.
I'm on the verge of a decision to either permanently build it into my obs or to downsize and make room for my 5" refractor wide-field. Since I want to do DSO photography, I would have to put the 16" on a big equatorial mount and replace the rack/pinion focuser with a sexy low-profile number to be able to get a DSLR to focus. So it is a choice of either spending more bucks or accepting that I probably aimed too high in the first place, accepting a serious loss and moving on.
I'll throw in a suite of 4 Meade Series 4000 1.25 eyepieces of various FLs from 32 to 9.7, all the Bartels gear, and a laptop running Win 98 to run the scope program for it.
I have been concentrating on getting my LX200GPS running right so have not yet even turned to this one to start any imaging, so I have no glorious deep-sky pics to show. I'll load a few pics on the scope and mount if anyone is interested.
At $2000 I am well in the hole on this one but you learn from your mistakes, right?
The scope is big and the mount is heavy - so pickup is the only option - and you'll need a big wagon or similar.
Last edited by pmrid; 28-04-2009 at 12:36 AM.
Reason: SOLD
Pics added, as requested. The finder scope is no longer there but there is a Telrad. And the wheels on the base are off. If you want wheels you'll have to weld a bit of steel on each corner. You can have the wheels though. And the eyepieces have gone too. I've disassembled the scope for transportation. Remember the optical tube alone is aboput 1800 long so this is not going to fit in the VW.
We are in SE Qld near a place called Somerset Dam. It's about 100k NW of brisbane.
cheers
Peter
Peter.I am interested in buying your 16" .I live just down the road from you, so would you give me a call on 54468039 about what's left and what's to pick up.Thanks, Mike Roberts.
