***First Light for the New Club Scope***
by Keith Lohmeyer
Don announced at the August meeting that the Meade 10" LX200
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope,
that the club had ordered, had arrived. Several club members, anxious
to see what the new scope
would do, gathered at Tuckahoe Saturday evening Aug 5.
After setting the scope up, we found the
scope runs on 18 volts and the adapter supplied was for 120-vac house
current. The 12-volt
adapter is listed as optional! After a short discussion of the
merits of this packaging choice, I made
a quick trip home to get a 12-v to 120-v inverter that I use with my
notebook computer. We now
had a pile of wires and boxes that converted from 12-vdc to 120-vac
back to 18-vdc but we were
finally up and running. Some clouds, haze and a 5-day old moon
made observing conditions less
than ideal. After a couple of false starts, we were able to get
the LX200 computer aligned, using
the two star alignment method. We could then just pick objects
from the database and the scope
would slew to the object. To test the optics, we put the scope on the
Double Double in Lyra. Don
Surles, Lyle Jones and Paul Gray said they were able to resolve all
4 stars and gave the optics a
passing grade. After slewing, all objects appeared in the eyepiece
but it was agreed that most were
not centered enough to hit the small CCD chip of the STV camera. We
will have to find ways to
refine the alignment process to improve centering. Next time out we
will try to get the scope
camera combo to work together. If interested in helping with this project,
and learning how to use
it, let Don, Lyle or me know.
Keith