Life with Alex
By Steve Payne

Mentioning that I should try to think of an article to write for this quarter's Star News, my wife Jean suggested I did a piece on Alex, so here it is. Alex I should mention, is our pet name for my new pride and joy, a Meade LX10 8" fork mounted Schmidt Cassegrain. I know it's sad giving it a name, but as it (for want of a better place) currently sits in a corner of our lounge, it very rapidly is becoming one of the family. Its presence causes female visitors to give Jean one of those looks as if to say "poor woman", but she really is OK about it, although she did question me as to whether Alex was a diminutive for Alexandra or Alexander! Hmmm.

The scope was ordered at the end of January at Astrofest '98 and its lack of arrival has been a topic of some discussion at the club over this last three months. However, it is here at last and after living with it for one week now, I am able to say that it has lived up to my expectations.
Firstly I guess I should say what those expectations were and what prompted me to choose this particular model (apart from the fact that I couldn't justify an LX200)! The obvious competition for this model is from the Celestron Celestar C8. This is very similar in terms of price and market positioning and so it came down to having to make a difficult choice. In favour of the C8 was the slightly

smaller obstruction from the secondary mirror (which should in theory provide for higher
contrast), but on the side of the Meade was a better quality supplied eyepiece (a 25mm Series 3000 Plössl) and the incorporation of a proper polar wedge and separate tripod instead of the universally disliked "wedgepod" as used on the Celestar 8. Also the Meade has a multi-coated corrector plate and a theoretically superior worm gear drive instead of the spur gear in the C8. As a colleague of mine has criticised the stability of the wedgepod this finally swung the decision to the Meade. Aside from that, I think it looks nicer! In addition to the scope I also purchased the Meade Series 4000 13.8mm Super Wide Angle and the Celestron Ultima Barlow.

When it arrived I was pleased to find everything very well packed in four separate boxes, the tube and fork assembly in one box (a double carton), the tripod in another, the wedge in a third and the accessories in the fourth. A quick check revealed that nothing was missing which was an encouraging start.

The instructions are reasonably clear (although I am still not certain that I have the tripod / wedge bolts the right way up, but it works). Assembly was straight forward and took little time, except for the viewfinder for which the two holes in the mounting plate were drilled too close together to allow the screws to mate with the threaded holes in the tube assembly. A few minutes with a needle file sorted that out but shouldn't have been necessary on what otherwise looked a well put together piece of equipment.

Following the assembly of course came the obligatory wait for clear skies. Some tantalising glimpses through the clouds were afforded to allow me to align the viewfinder and set up the wedge plate angle for rough polar alignment when the tripod is levelled. A brief (but not exhaustive) star test on Arcturus showed the scope to be in pretty good collimation, I estimated no more than 5% off centring of the secondary as a function of the diameter. This was not enough to encourage me to start tweaking yet but I will obviously look at this more closely in the near future. Stars were defined as tiny pinpoints even when as bright as Arcturus. The moon was very clear and showed excellent contrast before the haze and clouds rolled in to dash my hopes for any further viewing.

Finally came the weekend and some good, reasonably clear skies. I live in an area with poor light pollution and so view everything through an orange glow. Estimated limiting visual magnitude typically around 4, although I have not done an exhaustive scientific assessment yet of that. There was a little haze around, not ideal conditions of transparency but a moonless night for the best part. So I set up and allowed around 11/2 hours cool down time (in truth I was watching Cybil through to Frazier but it sounded more impressive the other way). My first objects were the globular clusters M13 and M92 in Hercules. These were like a little sprinkling of stars from a cosmic pepper-pot (who said I couldn't do poetic?) although clearly less bright than when viewed through the club's 12" Dobsonian. They seemed to have lost the luminosity which the larger aperture provided, but at the same time were clearly better resolved and individual stars would twinkle in and out of view as I moved my point of averted vision around. Best overall views were with the 13.8mm at ~145x magnification although the scope was able to stand this being doubled up by the Barlow.

Next up were Mizar and Alcor, then M81 and M82 in Ursa Major. The latter are a relatively easy pair of galaxies although they could have done with greater contrast against the skyglow. Again the higher magnification afforded by the 13.8mm yielded better contrast than with the 25mm at 80x. I am however impressed by the quality of the supplied eyepiece which is a step up when compared to the pathetic offerings usually supplied with equipment at this price point.

Looking for some new objects, I turned to Coma Berenices and found the globular cluster M53. Although not having a much fainter integrated magnitude than either of the Hercules pair, it was noticeably more difficult to resolve any detail against the background mush. The high background lighting makes it impossible to achieve any real level of dark adaptation and so I think this is best left to darker skies.

My final object, and perhaps for me the most impressive was the Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra. This was my first planetary nebula and it was easy to see why they are so called. The central hole in the ring was easy to define although the central star was not within reach. Even at 290x magnification this object is surprisingly small but asymmetry of the ring's shape was easy to see. I looked at this ethereal smoke-ring for ages and then finally called "stumps" at around 2.00 am. A very good nights viewing I felt.

My first impressions of the scope were all very favourable. The optics were as good as I have ever seen (given my limited experience of quality telescopes is quite small) and the mechanics were as excellent as I had hoped for. The drive seems to track objects well at high powers (although I have yet to assess the periodic error) and the mount and forks are exceptionally stable and well damped considering their relatively low mass (under 50lb the lot). At no time does touching the scope upset it and any vibrations damp out in a couple of seconds. My observing was done on a quite gusty evening and yet the images were rock steady. My only criticism of the mount is that I think polar alignment would be much easier if the fixed height tripod had the same azimuth fine adjuster as found on the variable height field tripod. I also found a fair bit of movement when tightening the wedge plate when polar aligning but I think maybe I unnecessarily over-loosened the screws so I will reserve judgement on this. Image shift on focusing is also pleasingly quite small and not obtrusive even at high power.

In conclusion, I can say wholeheartedly that I would not hesitate to recommend this scope to anyone looking for an entry level SCT on a fork mount. I am sure it will give me many, many hours of good viewing.