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Subject: Re: [M]: LX 50: Ghosts in 10" SC scope
From: Emery Hildebrand
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Tue Jan 27 04:36:53 1998

>Could the Ghost image be caused by my absolutely lousy,(even for the
untrained eye) 25 mm eyepiece that came with my LX50. This has got to be
one of the worst eyepieces money can buy. <

Could be... but also could be caused by the corrector and secondary being
slightly off the optical axis of the main mirror. If your new eyepiece does
the same you might want to either adjust this or send it back for shim
corrections.


>One of the eyepieces I want is an illuminated recticle eyepiece so I can
polar align and guide my first attempts at piggyback astrophotography
(mirror flop and all, got to start somewhere). I have read that some
people are having problems with the brightness of the Meade version. Is
there any other recommendations for illuminated eyepiece?<

Every one of the 10 I've used were too bright at their lowest settings, but
there might be one out there I haven't tried that adjusts to lower levels.
Painting the bulb or covering it with a semi-translucent cover is an easy
fix though. Some separate power supplies have the capability of varying
the power enough to get the best illumination, but not all seem to be able
to do this.


>Finally, I am trying to star test my scope and did have some success in
seeing the dark rings that fit inside the donut that is actually the star
is out of focus. The hole I assume is the obstruction. The rings seem to
be dancing around the donut hole and I can actually seem to increase their
intensity by getting closer but not too close to focus. <

Dancing rings is a sign of unstable seeing conditions and are not abnormal.
The diffraction rings you saw are a very good sign of decent optical
quality. Sounds like you have some good optics.

Emery Hildebrand