Here is my current setup waiting for it to get dark. From the bottom up. The mount, a Celestron CGE was purchased on Astro-Mart. It is a 2006 and was in excellent condition. I had it shipped directly to Dr. Clay at the ASO to be supercharged. It was the best $425.00 I've ever spent. After getting things setup, the uncorrected PE was 8.27 arc/sec peak to peak, after running PemPro and recording a curve, the PE was corrected to 2.75 arc/sec. peak to peak. Needless to say, I was very happy.
Next up is the Robin Cassady 12" saddle. This came with the mount package, and I'm glad it did. Compared to the stock saddle, this is almost twice the size. If you plan on piling on the weight (as I did) this addition is a must to eliminate as much flexure as possible. In the saddle I added an ADM tandem bar. It is very well machined, and Adam at ADM is a great person to deal with. This cost much less than a Cassady setup because you don't have to buy the saddles separate. That said, the saddle under the LX200 OTA might be a little short, and may be upgraded to eliminate more flexure.
Riding on top of all this is my 10" LX-200 OTA. It's an older "Classic" that I de-forked. I had thought about getting an LX-200R, but the optics in this OTA are fantastic, and there is very little image shift, so I didn't want to mess with perfection.
Next to the LX rides an Antaries 80mm Sentinel, with modds of course. I upgraded the lens with the W/O APO upgrade they offer for the Zenith Star series. It took me no more than 5 minutes to do the upgrade, and it's now a great wide field scope. |
