I am suprised about the camera.  I was told point blank that since Canon would not allow anyone to service the camera that the warranty was an in store replacement warranty.  The next time you are there I would push that point.  I do know that they carry two types of warranties.  One is a service warranty and is usually cheaper and for that one they do send it out for repairs.  The other one is the replacement warranty and for that one you are not supposed to leave empty handed.

As far as the soft picture issue, while I have not seen any of you pictures I do know that most pictures that come right out of hte camera may appear soft.  Some of this can be controlled by the custom settings in the camera.  They are the Set 1-3 and the Parameter1 and 2.  You may want to try to customize one of the custom settings and raise the sharpness up a notch or two to get the desired effect.  I find that most of my pictures could use sharpening with settings of 2 for the radius and 80 for the amount.  This brings it up a little but not to much.  For me I like a slightly soft look over the to sharp look for most pictures.

Feel free to either call me or email me directly if you need help with the settings.  You can also send me one of your picture right out of the camera and I can take a look at it to see if it matched what I see from mine.

The forecast fo the weekend in y area calls for clear skies, now that doesnt mean steady skies, but clear is good enough for me.  I will confess I do have a new camera....Sorry...

A few years back I purchased my D300 from Best Buy and in the process I was talked into purchasing their extended warranty.  Now I am not a big fan of extended warranties but it was represented as a direct in store replacement deal.  In other words all I had to do was bring it in and I would walk out with a replacement.  It cost 10% of the purchase price of the camera and extended the warranty for an aditional 5 years.  I bit and I am glad that I did.

I found this week that my camera would no longer connect via the USB port on the camera.  Try as I might I could not get it to work, so I packed up my camera bag and went to the local Best Buy.  Mind you this wasnt event the store I purchased the camera from in the first place.  I explained the issue and they had a member of the "Geek Squad" check it out as well.  It was verified that there was a problem and they started the process of getting me a replacement.  As it turns out Canon has since discontinued the D300.  No problem, they said, well just give you the newer D350!

Imagine my supprise, not only did they not hasstle me about it, they just ran back got a new one off the shel adn replaced my whole kit, lens and all with the new one.  I did however have to buy a new warranty for the new camera.

So I wanted to give a 'atta boy' to Best Buy for standing behind their warranty.  Now all I have to do is get some clear weather to test this bad boy out.  They redesigned the whole thing and I must say its a killer of a camera.

Ron,
Thanks, I stacked these in PS this time since there were not a whole lot of them.  These were the best out of the 29 images that I was able to take that night.  This is the tracking that I was used to last year.  the addition of the counterweight and the new T-Ring really helped out a lot.


I dont think there is a way to get iamges to look the same on every monitor.  I have found out that certain LCD's are the worst.  I do a lot of regular digital photography and I have taken great care to calibrate my monitor to the print houses that I use.  In the process of doing so I found that there can be significant differences if your monitor is not properly calibrated.  I have not gone the route of a calibration spider, but I may do so in the future.

The new T-Ring arrived last week and I had a chance to use it this weekend and what a difference.  The new one from Scopetronics is very well built and much better quality than the older Meade version.  the pin retaining area covers the whole locking pin, the fit is also much tighter.  There is still a little slop but not near as much as before.

I also drilled out the counterweight I have to lighten it up a bit, the balance is not yet perfect but much better than before.

I am now back to where it was last year.  I can go about 90 seconds with a yield of good no trails images of about 65%.

Now I jsut have to try this all out with the guider.

Thanks, I am still amazed at how different digital images can look from one monitor to another.  At home the viel portion is noce and bright, the sky background is not really pitch black and the red glow from the iamger is visible on the right hand portion of the iamge.  Loaded here at my other monitor at work the image is dark, the viel is very dim and the sky background is very black.

Both monitors are calibrated with the Adobe gama program.

Makes me wonder what some of the other iamges people submit look like on the monitors they have compared to mine.

OK, I am still going at things without the guider.  We had a nice clear night and I wanted to streatch out a little.  I choose the Veil since I know it is a hard target and I wanted to see waht could be done with my basic setup.

Shot using the following
LX200 Classic
Lumicon GEG with the reducer in the rear position (@f5.5)
Digital Rebel, ISO 1600 exposures set to 114 seconds.  @ 14 images used for this stack.
Processed using Steve C's tutorial on his website.

Quite a bit of noise in the iamge, but viewed from a reasonable distance (1- mile  ) it looks aceptable.

I am going to try for more usable frames the next time around.  the battery in the camera was almost dead, and I didnt check it before I started,  When I went back out at the end of the series I found it only took about 40 images.  Lesson learned...

http://www.photozo.com/album/showphoto.php?photo=69386&cat=500&ppuser=4838

I believe that I may have found one of the things that could have led to my star streaking images.

I was out doing some quick Lunar imagin the other night and all of the sudden while slewing the telescope my camera detached from the T-Ring.  Luckily enough I have always had the neck strap looped over the piggyback mount on the scope.  No damage to the camera, but I did take some time to inspect the T-ring, and come to find out the little notch that is supposed to capture the locking pin has become elongated.  It is wide enough that when attached can wobble my camera back and forth wihile it is locked in place, and if I combine some vibration in I can get it to detach completely.

I have to believe that this slop, while taking long exposures could easily lead to start streaking like shown in the above sample.  I can imagine that the camera can easily bounce around in the slop zone while the scope is tracking.

I also noticed that comparing my lens mount and the T-Ring that on the Lens there is a complete circular hole that the pin fits into and when attached the lens is absolutely rock stable.  The T-Ring on the other hand has a notch that only captures half the pin.  I am not sure why they would not make the outer diameter of the T-Ring large enough to be able to use a full hole instead.

The question I have for you guys is how tight is the fit of your T-Rings?  I am curious if mine is the only sloppy one out there.

Anyways, I have ordered a new one and it should be in by Thursday.  I will test its fit to see if it is tighter and hope that it makes things a little better.

I will definately find a way to balance it to one side as well.  I did a new pec training the other night, I ran the initial learn after erasing the previous values, and then I ran an update.  Now, I just have to wait it out until the weekend....I sure hope its clear...

I took out the old drill press tonight and proceeded to drill lightening holes in one of the 3lb brass weights.  After about 30 holes with a 3/8" bit I think I may have got it about right. With all the gear on the scope and the weight snug against the tube the balance appears to be pretty neutral.  There is a slight tendicy to nose over, but it is a lot better than before.  Now all I need to do is wait for a clear night on the weekend.

I also read on the lx200 group that lack of grease or uneven greasing will casue similar results, so I may have to check that if this fails to make it better.

Dave and Tony,

Tony,I saw your post as well.  This is now the second time I have been pointed to a balancing issue, and maybe I should listen  .  I do have a set of weights, but my lightest weight is to heavy to balance the scope when it is pointed straight up so I have been trying to find time to either drill a lot of holes in it to lighten it up or get it milled down at the shop to make it lighter.  It is a 3lb weight and I figure it is about twice as much weith as I really need.

I will have to make time to do it since it appears that it may be one of my biggest problems.

I went through the whole drift alignment and re-train of the pec and viewing through the 9mm on a defocused star it is very steady.  It is about as god as I can get it without driving me crazy staring down through the EP. 

In my attemps to get the guider woring with my scope I have gone back to the basics.  I have done the following:

1.  Re-Leveled the base plate attached to the pier.
2.  New polar alignment.
3.  Good drift alignment, Dec and RA.

I then chose the nice bright cluster NGC884.  Set up the exposure time to be only 50 seconds with a 4.5 second mirror lockup time wich comes out to about a 50.5 second exposure.

Out of a total of 60 images only 11 of them showed no signs of star elongation at all.  There were several of them that looked like this one.



Looking closely I can see three distinct positions of the scope durring this short exposure.  Then there are some that are spot on for the whole exposure time.  I did not take the time to see if there  was a patter to the tracking errors, but I do recall that there at times was several in a row.

I think that this is what is causing the guider to behave so irratically.  It will guide perfectally for some time then it all goes to, well you know what.

I would expect there to be some guiding errors without the use of a guider.  I would also expect it to be somewhat consistant from image to image.  but the large varince that I see make me wonder where it is coming from.

The scope is old,I bought it used and I have had it now for two years, and I believe it was about 5 years old then.  I have found replacement gear sets for the GPS version but nothing for the classic scopes.  Other than laying out for new drive gear boxes units is there anything I can do to determine if it s the drive system?

Twilbur, Dave Rick and Steve

Thanks for the many replies, and it is good to be back!! it is also good to finally have some time again with the scope.  As some of you may remember a long time ago I posted some pictures of my oldest daughter on her horse, well she has come a long way since then having competed last year at the state competition (Silver Medal in Drassage) and is keeping us very busy these days going from horse show to horse show.  Last Sunday she qualified to comete at the state level again so we are now in crunch mode getting prepaired for that as well.  The other two are also chipping in on keeping us busy, busy, busy....

Anyways,  Here is the Image that I captured Friday night.  Remember this is only a single image, no attempt to remove the amp glow and it is only to show that the tracking was pretty good for a 10 minute exposure.



Now you can understand my frustration when I spent all night on Saturday trying to do the same thing!!.

I went out and did a bunch of searching on the DEC axis backlash problem and I found that it is just the way the mount is.  I took the information and inspected my dec axis tonight and here is what I noticed.

The worm drive, main gear, and clutch are all in great shape and appear to be aligned perfectally.  No aparent slop was measured or noticed in this area.  All of the slop(At least what I can perceive with my eyes) is in the gearbox.  As I slew on guide mode and watch the motor winding and the wormgear I can see the motor moving for about 2-3 seconds before the worm gear stars to move.  This is also noticed when turning the little manual movement knob, there is a noticable amount of backlash in the gearbox.  Most all the articles out there are geared to addressing the slop or misalingment in the worm gear to main gear portion of the drive.  Little mention to the gearbox slop is made anywhere with the exception of some references to some drive having up to 15 seconds of delay when changing directions.

I also found references to the balance of the unit affecting the amount of backlash seen by the system.  there is also a few out there that have made some changes to the setting screw for the worm gear pressure so that it could be adjusted from the outside of the housing and can be tailored to each observing session of portion of the sky.  Some of these apear to be a little drastic but I can also see the merits.

Tonight with the cover off I was able to tune in the backlash setting on the hand controller to a more approriate value.  this was done with the scope pointing in the general direction of hte next planned guiding session and with all the hardware attached.  It shoudl at least give me a starting point.

The plan is that on the next clear night to verify and redo the polar alignment, pay very close attention to the balance of the scope, check and verify the backlash settings and perform a proper calibration of the guider. 

I also found a reference that stated that it was not acceptable to take the dark farme by using your had to cover the snout of the guider since it may pick up the thermal heat rom your hand and corrupt the dark frame.  Is there any real fact to this?  It seems to make sense but I do not know the sensitivity of hte chip to thermal readiation.

I really hope things go better the next time around.

Keep the suggestions, tips and comments comming, I hope that this topic will help others out as much as it has already helped me.

Ok, lots to digest here.

Last thursday (7th July) I went out and discovered a few things that may have led to some of the problems.  I took a look at the settings for calibration on the 208xt.  I had read in the previous posts from jake that he had soem troubles in the beginning and that changes made to the calibration times helped him out.  I went to the settings and I found them to be set at 01 which is 0.1 seconds as I read the manual.  This is obviousely not near long enough of a calibration time.  I reset them to 3 seconds and performed a new calibration.  I later discovered that hte Autoguider program from Meade was setting the calibration settings to 0.1 for me every time I used it to initiate a calibration.

I also added my couterweights and just balanced the tube so that when horizontal it would remain level with all the gear attached.  I had not read the link about balancing yet so I dont know if this is proper or not..  This was what I did that night.  the calibration went well and I used the 208 in standalone mode.  I chose a fairly bright star to guide on and did the dark frame, and calibration keeping the 208 mounted perpindicular to the RA axis.

After all the messing around I was able to get a good 10 minute run with good results in the image.  Problem was that by the time I got to this point it was again 3:30am and I had to get to work that morning. I though that I had this thing licked until Saturday night.

Saturday night I went out and duplicated all the steps from the previous night but I couldnt get the guider to guide for more than 3 minutes max before it lost track of the guide star.

Try as I  might no combination of guide star, position in the sky or backlash setting on the control pad would cure this problem. So I steped back and did a little testing using the reticle EP.

After centering a star in the reticle and selecting the guide speed the RA axis is immediately responsive to pressing the E/W keys. The Dec axis on the other hand has about a 10 second delay in it.  This is a real problem, I can understand why the guider cant control the scope and why the calibrations are probable in correct with this amount of backlash in the gears.

I went to the control pad and started to adjsut the backlash setting to try to minimize or get rid of the backlash.  By the time I got the Dec axis to be responsive I had a setting of 60-70.  This was no good either since at each direction change the motor would speed up and sometimes it would make the star jump in the EP and sometimes it was not enough to make it responsive right away.   I am not sure that this isthe best way to correct the problem.

I also dont believe that my Polar alignment is good enough right now to be able to disable the Dec axis corrections all togather.

I do believe that it may be time to make a descision of what to do about the mount, after all it is an older classic modle and it has been around the block several times.

I can either address the problems that are causing the backlash or I can R&R the mount all togather.  this is where I would appreciate some honest feedback from the experts here.

I have a classic LX200, and the DEC axis has already had the bearing upgrade done to it by the previous owner. After the upgrade the scope was sent to Meade and checked for trueness.  the report back was that it was right on.

Is there a proven way to remove the backlash from the classic system?

What would be the recomended replacement mount that could handle the 10" SCT tube assembly and also be mounted on my currrent cement pier?

Am I making to much out of this whole thing.

I know that in order to break past the level of imaging htat I can currently produce I need to get a guiding system working, but for that to work I need to have a reliable, tight mount.

I am in this hobby for the lang haul, I wouldnt have build the observator and mounted my scope out there if I was unprepaired to do what it takes to make it operate correctly.  Be honest, I can take it and I always appreciate it.

I would have never thought about backlash as being the culprit, the guiding goes so well for several minutes, on one occasion it went with corrections of about 0-2, and after 3 minutes or so it went south in a hurry.


It is so weird since the other night it worked so well.  Believe me,   am getting to understans that the guider will not be an easy bolt on, turn on and go unit and that there is a right way to get it to work good.  I am also sure that there are limitations to the 208 that I will not be able to overcome, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

Yup, but it has been awhile since I last did it so it may be time to do it again, and while I am at it I may as well re-drift test my alignment.

I have heard that I can use the guider to do the PEC training and I will try that tonight.  I am assuming that I can choose almost any bright star for this.  Is it best to use a bright start so that the corrections can be made as fast as possible? and I would image that in a perfect world you should retrain depending on the position in the sky that you are imaging.

I dont recall any settings for the amount of correction in the manual, but i do think I recall someone mentioning that there were settings for the amount of movement durring calibration and that it helped them out.

Steve, I know that you used one for quite some time, what should I realistically expect from the 208?  I know it isnt the top of the line, but I am hoping that it will be of some use to me until I can pony up the cash for a more capeable unit.

Other than replacing the mount with a nice AP mount what is th best cure for the backlash issue?  Will counterweights help out at all?  I do have a mount and weights but I have no real idea how to properly mount them so I just keep them on the shelf.

Ahhhhh, the good feeling of exhaustion is starting to overcome me....thats what happens whn you are out all night playing with the toys and then right to work after a few hours of sleep, but I have to take the clear nights while they are here.

Thanks for all the suggstions I will do my best to pay close attention to them and I will post my findings, hopefully this can then serve as a guide for others.