|
My Experiences with the LXD 55 SC-8
My son and I was very excited, we unpacked the carefully. First was the tripod and mount, counted all the parts to make sure everything was there. Than inspected the mount, it appeared to have been used. It just did not look new, scratches on the paint. The polar scope was loose and did not fit right; the cover would always fall off. The declination motor cable looked stretched out. Everything else was unwrapped not like the pictures I saw when someone else received there’s. I assembled the tripod and mount and got the OTA box ready. We opened the OTA box and inventoried the parts. All the parts were there and they all look new. The only problem I could see was the view finder. They had packed the view finder for a LX200, it was Meade blue. Well we continued to assemble the telescope, putting all the parts where they belonged. At this point everything was put together where it belonged. So I unlocked the motors and balanced the scope, the mount felt tight, too tight. I was able to balance it and drive onto the next step, testing it. I hooked up the power supply; I did not use the battery pack. I used a LX200/LXD 55 A/C power supply. I entered all the info the autostar needed and proceeded to do a easy alignment. The declination motor fired up and within seconds it stops, the autostar displayed “Motor fault”. Well I knew it wasn’t the power, so I reset everything and started over. Once again it did the same thing, so I checked the gear mess and it look good. Not even loose like some people have reported. The next day I called Meade, these guys tried to help but it keep doing the same thing. I told them what everything looked like when I unpacked the parts. They agreed with me that the mount I had received might have been returned and sent out again by mistake. So they set up a replacement order and while I had them on the phone I told them about the finder scope being blue. They said no problem the send me the right color finder scope. About a week later I received the new finder scope; guess what they sent me the wrong one. They sent me the finder scope for a Schmidt-Newtonian, a white 6x30 finder scope. So I called Meade again and they apologized for the mix up and would 2nd day air me the right one. This time that got it right, I got a white 8X30 finder scope. On December 2nd I received the replacement tripod and mount. This one looked the way a new one should, everything wrapped up. The mount looked brand new, the motors moved freely. So I assembled everything and began to test the telescope and mount. This time when I did a easy alignment and the it made it thru all the steps. I was in my living room so I pretended like I was outside and slewed many points in my living room sky. If it was going to fail I wanted to fail here not in the field. Well all went well the setup did not fail, the real test will be on the night sky. But one problem the next few days we had rain, I was told by some friends at the astronomy club that was a good sign I had a good scope. On December 5th the rain cleared out during the day, it became a beautiful sky. Sunset came and we began to setup outside, this would be first light. I leveled the mount and did a rough polar alignment, did an easy alignment and was on they way. The first object on my son’s list was the Andromeda Galaxy, I hit goto and it was on its way. It ended up just on the edge of the field of view, for not spending a lot of time on a polar alignment it was close enough. The optics of our Meade 8” Schmidt-Cassegrain where great, I was blown a way by the view, I couldn’t wait for the next object. Next my son wanted to go to Saturn but it was not up yet, so we went to M42 Orion Nebula. I hit the goto button and we almost hit it on the money, so we centered it up. Once again it was a breath taking sight, we where in a light polluted area (Houston, Texas). Conclusions
|
|
|