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[katodog]

I got my new scope today, and per Joe's request. here are some pictures of it. It went together pretty easy. Too easy, I think. I kept looking for spare parts thinking I missed something. Meade built a pretty damn good product with this one. Now all I have to do is take it outside and setup the autostar. It should be a piece of cake. Please excuse the messy house. We've been remodeling, and we're too lazy to put the kid's toys away. It gives the house a well lived in look

BIIIG boxes. Good thing I'm young and strong (if you believe that, I've got swampland for you)



Mount



Tripod



Telescope tube



Telescope tube



Tripod getting assembled



Mount on tripod



Finished product




Me and my brand new bouncing baby refractor






And this last pic is proof that size does matter...






Sorry, Joe. I just couldn't resist.

[Bryant]

Haha! Nice last pic! Congratulations on the purchase of your new scope! Looks pretty fun, care to give some of the specs on it?

By the way, nice Katanas hanging over your TV o.O

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Kdog,

Witnessing the unveiling of your new telescope is so cool!

Big boxes indeed.

How pristine everything is and looks quite solid. How will you be transporting it eventually and where you storing it after your observations? The girth of the tube is quite impressive and should provide some stunning views. I think refractors are the best...

Couple of things tho...I would epoxy the Ninja throwing stars on the tube and attach the swords to each tripod leg - in case any body unauthorized gets too close...

Now, of course you will write about your first observation session, and I'll be anxious to read about it.

Excellent, just excellent...and thanks for sharing the event with us...and it didn't rain! Hope to take a peek thru your new toy sometime soon.

[katodog]

Bryant, the specs for this scope are; 152mm objective, 1200mm focal length operating at f/8. It is an Achromatic refractor with a collimatable objective cell and Meade EMC Super Multi Coatings. Resolving power is .74 arcseconds.

Don't ask me what any of that means. All I know is you look through the big end and everything looks small. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.


Okay Joe, I don't know what you've been told, but the going rate to look through the scope is $5 a look. If you want to take pictures, we provide the camera and it costs $7.50.

But, you seem like a nice guy, so I'll give you the family discount. $10 a view, and $13.50 for pictures.

I haven't quite figured out where I'm going to keep it, but transporting won't be too hard, it's really not that heavy. I just need to get some good cases for it. I don't like the "use the shipping boxes" mentallity. But why should I have to move it? You guys are all coming over to the house to see it. I'll be giving autographs before the viewing session. Anyone bringing alcohol gets immediately bumped to the front of the line.


But anyway, how are you supposed to register the scope if you can't find the damn serial number? This must be some black market special with the serial scratched off. But then it would have been cheaper, wouldn't it??


P.S. Now that I posted the pics of me, you get to look at my ugly face all the time. ;D

[katodog]

Oh, by the way, the swords and shuriken are all very real and very sharp. I've been collecting anything with a blade since I was a kid. My collection now scales over 450 pieces. My prized piece is a katana I got at an estate sale for $50 that was appraised last year at over $37,000

But to any would be thieves, there is two things stopping anyone from getting a hold of the collection. One is the entire collection, except for what is in the house, is in a secured storage facility. The other thing stopping thieves would be me and my 8 black belts. Oh, and did I mention my Desert Eagle Nickel Plated 44 magnum?

But anyway, the swords on the wall are all production pieces. The Coiled Dragon Katana ( top sword) came from Atalnta Cutlery. The second sword is from Ebay. God, I love ebay. The bottom one is a knock off of one of the Highlander swords. I also have the Green Destiny sword from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It came from The Noble Collection. It's in the bedroom.



Before anyone asks, the knife lineup is as follows: Gil Hibben designed Negotiator II, Robert Shiflett throwers, The Wizard's Edge, Shiflett throwers, Excaliber letter opener, Shiflett throwers

Needless to say, luckily the boss didn't put up too much of a fight when I wanted to take down the girly froofy stuff and put up swords.

[katodog]

Here are some of the first shots taken with the LXD75 AR6-AT Achromatic Refractor

It is a 6" Refractor with a 1200mm focal length. The eyepiece used was a 25mm, and the camera was a Fuji Finepix S5000 DSLR. The pics were taken at various zoom settings.









I shot a video of Jupiter, but the stack didn't come out very good. I'll need to try a few more to get it right

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Kdog,

It's a good thing to see that telescopes are used, and used well.

The lunar shots are cool. I like the overall shaprness near the terminator in the first one, and I can imagine the crisp views a 6" refractor with such a long focal length provides.

I would like to see a small video snippet , (5 sec), when you get a satisfactory capture.

Tell us about your sentiments and experiences with your new refractor.

Anticipating your future efforts...

[katodog]

Actually, this was the second night that I had the scope out. The first night was Friday, and my cousin and I pretty much played with the autostar and it's 18 million different modes.

It didn't seem that hard to do the alignment with the autostar, but for certain things it wouldn't move in the right direction. We aligned it, and then went to Vega to check it, and it got pretty darn close. We then moved to M57, since it was close to Vega. But after that, we tried to go to M13, and the scope kept slewing itself into the mount. I don't think it knew to go back where it came from, and then go to M13.

I re-read the manual about two thousand times, and figures maybe I'll reset the Autostar and start form scratch. I'm sure we missed something.

The views through the scope are amazing. Everything is very crisp, and it seems like it has a pretty good contrast to it. Of course, it does have the typical color problems, but after I figure out which filters work best for what I'm looking at, it will be no problem. The photos that showed abnormal color really weren't that bad, certainly not bad enough for me to dislike the pics.

The scope and mount are a tiny bit on the heavy side, like lifting a small car, but I have a pretty good idea of where to hold it if I want to move it around. I can see how it would be difficult for someone of lesser strength to not be able to pick it up and move from spot to spot. It probably won't be a problem if I am at home, where there is nothing blocking my view. But at my cousin's house, we have to deal with a few very large trees. Once something is out of sight, we have to move to a different spot in the yard. Nonetheless, it doesn't interfere too much with observing, as long as we pick a good spot.

I have to say, other than the covers for the motors being plastic, and a slight play in the RA motor, I am extremely impressed with the scope and mount. It's built like a tank, and apart from kicking the thing, it seems like vibration dampens out pretty quick with the tripod fully extended. I want to try it with the legs all the way in, and see how much vibe there is. Then I will probably get some of those vibration pads.

The only other issue is actually transporting the thing. Just by sheer size, you need a pretty good size vehicle to haul it around. It fits in my minivan, if I take out the very back seat and the seat behind the drivers seat. What I do is put the tube in the box with the foam, and fold up the tripod and wrap a bungee cord around it. Then I lay it on the floor with the spreader sticking into the hole from the seat. The mount lays flat on the floor, and is heavy enough with the weights on it to keep from moving around.

All in all, I would definitely tell anyone looking for a really good system to look at the LXD75 and the tubes that come with it. Any one of the systems has got to be exceptional on that mount, and the prices are pretty good. I'd rather pay $1200 on an entire system, than what some people pay for very small refractors like Televue and such. Now I know that there probably is a better optical system on the more expensive refractors, but do you acually think that your eyes and your brain can tell the difference? I think that just teh few snaps I posted here will tell good enough that the cheaper Meade does just as good a job or better, and you get the bigger aperture and goto system with it.

But anyway, to make a long story short, I'm pretty darn impressed, and wouldn't give this scope up for anything.

Well, unless someone wanted to trade me for that behemoth MAX mount and 20" optical tube that Meade has. That would be a fair trade I think.


If anyone has questions, ask away. I'm sure I could answer most of them.