Hello, it's me David Williams again.
And I started to get to thinking about my older computer with some of my older astrophotography attempts. Then I realized that I have some better attempts at photographing Saturn. However, as I realize too that they were with 1.25" eyepiece projection and a good Meade barlow using my Pentax ist Ds and (I believe) my Meade LX200 GPS 10" F10.
As you can see this was some time (at least roughly 6) years ago and Saturn was with it's ring plane tilted for about maximum viewing angle, the way I like it
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So I'm trying to do better, but does anyone here suggest that I go back to using 1.25" eyepiece projection and stay away from 2"?
I guess for one thing, I still need to get my Meade telescope fixed up. It still even has a problem with even the simplest, most basic of needs: tracking the stars right, and I believe that either something is slipping or there a voltage problem or something. That's because the motor doesn't really make a sound when it's suppose to be tracking at guide rate, but when I try to slew it sounds like it did normally even when it was brand new (kind of I guess). And of course it really makes the scope visibly move when I use a high enough speed. But I actually have to about keep pressing the 2X slew button and track west to make it more like track the stars right and that's just a little too fast.
And considering that I and still trying to decide whether to get enough information (like on MAPUG) on the Internet and see it I could take a look inside the computer base of the LX200 and maybe using knowledge and pictures showing like where there should be grease and other places not, see if I could fix it. But I'm still a bit not sure and a little nervous about that (not doing it right.
So I'll maybe need to save up enough to send it in to Meade. It'd be maybe $300 for the Sky Insurance deal and in a little time I could do that. And shipping and handling to California is about $100.
When they do, I also need for them to fix a stripped female thread in the computer base, the one I used for Alt/Az setup, but I don't need with and eq. wedge. For some reason it stripped the internal thread but not my rod. Then I might opt for just using it Alt/Az and not do too long an exposure in astro and then the scope would be at a better height again for me. Of course I realize that if the exposure were long enough, it would cause field rotation at this setup.
So what are you guy's suggestion?
David.
