New equipment galore

I'm afraid I've overdone it a bit in the last few weeks.

First, I found a first-gen 8 inch LX200 on Marketplace for a decent price (about what the optical tube is worth, which is what the experts suggest for this generation). The mount seems to work well. It came with some other stuff, mostly not that useful but there were two decent eyepieces in the bunch, a Meade 4000 series 26mm plossl, and a TeleVue 32mm Plossl.

I took it to the lab and did some playing with it. It appears to be functioning well. The sellers had attached it to a 12V power supply. It should have 18V. I'm working on getting 18V sources for it for both AC and battery.

I did replace the capacitors in the hand controller, that's mandatory on these early models. 

 

LX200 in a very messy lab

The first thing I ordered for it is a 2" dielectric mirror diagonal. I put one on a C8 that I owned years ago and it was a FANTASTIC upgrade. Super solid, very bright, makes using 2" eyepieces possible and pleasant. 

I also got a rain/sun/dust cover for it so that I can set it up then cover it and let it cool while I wait for dark (or early morning hours). A dew shield was picked up as well. Of course it's been mostly cloudy since I got all this stuff together so I haven't really tried it out properly. I did a quick run on the deck and once I got past some mistakes on my part, it was generally pointing correctly.

On that quick shake-down I also gave 5 minutes to an SVBony SV215 3-8mm zoom eyepiece that I picked up last week. It's parfocal; from previous experience I really like a parfocal planetary eyepiece. It lets me find the sweet spot for magnification on planets.
I used it on the ring nebula, and it was OK in my quick looks. The scope isn't really collimated or cooled down properly, so I couldn't really judge it but I think it'll be good. 

The second and biggest hit is a scope that I first saw on Marketplace about 6 weeks ago. It's the scope I've wanted for probably close to 20 years, and at first I had thought I would build it, but the price on this one was good enough that in the end I broke down and just bought it.

Behold, an Obsession 18" f/4.2 Ultra Compact. 

It's about 15 years old and shows some signs of having been well used. I have some work to do on it. It has a Nexus wifi box to use a phone for navigation, but I'm not certain I'll be using it, I really enjoy star hopping. It's likely I'll leave it on the scope, I don't HAVE to use it. I'm really not sure about all the power wires and such. It's got a lot of dew heater stuff going on. I don't know if all that is necessary; I never had it on the 15" and did OK but who knows.

Other stuff needs cleaning and straightening, but nothing major. Some adhesives have come loose, that sort of thing. 

This was a great deal but the spending is not over. I know from my previous experience with my 15 back pre-2010 that I will probably wind up buying at least a couple of very expensive eyepieces. I had a 22mm Nagler back then. Either that or a 28mm Panoptic would be very nice.  Both are in the $500 range, so it'll be a wait. I have a reasonable collection of decent (not great) eyepieces that will serve for now.

And I've already ordered up a laser collimator. I had one before but I think I let it go with the old 15" scope. Luckily they're pretty darn cheap these days; it was < $25.

I'll be writing up what I do with both of these scopes and my impressions, stay tuned.