LXD55 SN-10 by Tomyy Gavin

I ordered an LXD55 SN-10 in mid October, it eventually arrived some 14 weeks
later at the end of January. A word of note to anyone wanting to order one
of these in the UK, there is a waiting list, it`s like queuing for a bus and
when one turns up you are so far back in the queue that there isn`t enough
room for you to get on.
The assembly is very easy, a few notes on putting the scope together. Check
all the allen key bolts are secure, when assembling the cradle there are 6
bolts, 4 small and 2 larger ones. DO NOT over tighten the 4 smaller ones.
The three bolts at the top of the tripod are slightly smaller than the holes
they are meant to go through, this will cause images to shake and increase
the amount of dampening down time when using the slew controls on the scope.
You can tighten these quite hard to cure this or, go to an ironmongers to
replace the offending parts. The only other quibble I had with the assembly
is the viewfinder. The thumbscrews will not tighten enough to hold it in
position. Again a trip to the ironmongers and buy 2 small nuts, which can
then be tightened with a small spanner. You can replace the thumbscrews over
the small nuts to hide the fact you`ve made any adjustments.
The first time I used the scope I had messages running across the hand
control so fast that I couldn`t read them. Pressing the bottom right hand
arrow will slow this down.
I was outside my house with the streetlights blazing away, however the views
through this scope were fairly amazing, I`ve used a 16"Dob which did not
give as much detail and contrast as the 10" Meade which I must mention has
the UHTC coatings. The 26mm eyepiece supplied does not have enough power to
view planets, even with a x2 barlow. I viewed Jupiter and the image was just
too bright! I borrowed a friends eyepiece to boost the power the 2nd time I
used the scope to view Jupiter and wow! I`ve read the telescope is not
"tuned" for viewing the planets, that may be the case but the views this
scope provides are better than good. M42 was another fine site along with
M43. I cannot wait to take this scope to a dark site away from the light
pollution where I live. For the money it will be hard to beat.