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Meade LX90 Telescope

This Meade LX90 was my new toy in May 2002!

After a couple of nights use it was very clear that it was a major step from my previous ETX 70AT.

My initial comments were: I am amazed at the tracking accuracy when I spend time on alignment - I did three hours looking at planets, stars and attempting a few galaxies without needing the spotting scope once! This model is also much quieter than my ETX 70AT.

The LX90 has continued to match my current requirements and give hours of real deep entertainment and satisfaction. 

Meade Electronic Eyepiece

This images were made using a Meade Electronic Eyepiece on my LX90.

More details and images with Meade Electronic Eyepiece click -->>

AstroCam

This image taken using my home-built AstroCam. Early attempt at sunspot imaging.

My AstroCam was built from a Philips ToUcam Pro webcam which delivers 640x480 images.

For more details of building my AstroCam click  -->>

Transit of Mercury across Sun: 7 v 2003

Views of the Sun in my part of the UK were difficult with the Sun covered by varying amounts of cloud, never completely clear.

Mercury transits the Sun. Note that the planet shows as a perfect round spot in front of the Sun.		Sunspot, to the same scale, taken during the transit of Mercury. Note that the sunspot has an irregular and more diffuse shape.

Large Sunspot Complex: 29 v 2003

On 26th May 2003 and subsequent days, a large sunspot complex developed which covered over 1.2 billion sq km of the sun's suface. The two images below show the whole sun image taken with Canon G1 digital camera and a more detailed image of the sunspot complex with my AstroCam. Major X-class solar flares and coronal mass ejections, CMEs, were ejected from the complex and headed earthwards.

This sun event happened on the days before an annular eclipse of the sun on 31st May 2003.

Link to http://www.spacew.com/astroalert.html for Solar Activity information and to AstroAlert at http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/proamcollab/astroalert/default.asp to sign up for e-mail notification of interesting solar events as they develop.

For more information of all sunspots since 1874 see 'The Butterfly Diagram' and more on the Solar Physics website

Moon

Venus

           
Once I have located Venus with the telescope I can pick it out in the daytime sky with the naked eye.

Jupiter

Saturn

Mars

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MARS
Dorridge, UK
20 vii 2003 02:26UT
Meade LX90 f20 Homebuilt Astrocam
Vega AVI Capture + K3CCD Tools + PaintShop Pro 8
Three images compared to confirm that surface features are not viewing irregularities
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MARS Dorridge, UK 17 viii 2003 01:05UT Meade LX90 f20 Homebuilt Astrocam Vega AVI Capture + K3CCD Tools + Paintshop Pro 8 (Poor seeing through high cloud)

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MARS Dorridge, UK 19 viii 2003 00:25UT Meade LX90 f20 Homebuilt Astrocam Vega AVI Capture + K3CCD Tools + Paintshop Pro 8

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Before you go out to view Mars, see the NASA MARS poster giving today's orbit positions, simulated image and size.
Click the  image below:

................................ more from the Mars Today site

Deep Sky

      
Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD Camera

The Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD camera has worked well with my LX90: I had some trouble getting the STAR2000 guiding to work but this was solved by updating the Autostar software. See STAR2000 for details.

Note that I prefer to use a flip-mirror diagonal with the MX7C to help with finding and focussing my images: the MX7C on the flip-mirror diagonal will focus at f/10 and at f/6.3 (with focal reducer), however, with the f/3.3 focal reducer focus is not achievable with the flip-mirror in the setup. Focus with the f/3.3 focal reducer is only achievable with the MX7C tube directly connected to the f/3.3 reducer at the rear of the OTA.

LX90 with Starlight Xpress MX7C Focus with f/3.3 focal reducer		LX90 with Starlight Xpress MX7C Focus with f/6.3 focal reducer and at f/10

See LX90 images using Starlight Xpress MX7C CCD camera on Messiers and Starlight Xpress pages on this site

Click to link -->   Messiers          StarlightXpress

Digital Camera

I have a Canon PowerShot G1 digital camera which I use with a Digi-T adaptor from Scopetronix in Florida. The Digi-T adaptor is mounted onto any 1.25" eyepiece after removing the rubber eye shield - it is secured by three screws into the eye shield slot in the eyepiece. See more detail on  Scopetronix.

The camera has 3.3 megapixels and produces jpeg images of about 1 megabyte. It's maximum exposure/aperture is 8secs/f2.5.

Sun

This sunspot was so large that it was easily seen with the naked eye through 'eclipse' glasses.

Below, further views of 10484 and the larger 10486:

Two very large sunspots three years after the 11 year sunspot cycle maximum. Region 486 became the largest sunspot complex of the solar cycle. It was BIG! It covered a surface area of over 3 billion square miles! Although this is difficult to place into perspective, it may help to understand that you could map the entire surfaces of the 4 inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) together with the giant gas planet Neptune, all within the area encompassed by sunspot complex 486 - with room to spare. Several major flares resulting in very high speed mass ejections towards the earth resulted in great aurora activity, even at low latitudes, and disturbance to radio communication, satellite operation, and power transmission. The astronauts in the ISS were forced to shelter in the the best protected part of the station. The solar storm travelled at double normal speed and arrived in 20 hours rather than the 'normal' two days. The storm was of G5, the highest, severity. See http://www.spacew.com for space weather reports.

Saturn

Image of Saturn using Meade LX90 showing Saturn with four of its moons with Canon G1 digital camera.

See similar image using Canon EOS 650 35mm film camera below on this page.

Stars

As usual, I experimented first with Mizar in my digital adventures with the stars. Using the same star across differing technologies provides comparisons!

The two images below were taken using Canon G1 mounted on LX90 using the Digi-T attachment on a the Meade 25mm eyepiece that came with my ETX 70AT scope. The images have been E-W flipped, the stars selected and the part of the image I wanted reduced in size by 50% using PaintShop Pro7.

To assist with focussing, I took the video-out from the camera and ran it into a cheap 5inch B&W monitor - I believe this results in better digital images than those I saw from my 35mm camera where I have major focussing problems.

Note: on both images a weak star is seen below Mizar - I cannot identify the star from my atlases - I would appreciate an e-mail if you can identify it for me. john@cuckney.net

Deep Sky

The Orion Nebula looks glorious on a good night through the LX90.

This image taken with Orion low in the sky and with poor viewing conditions but does show the illumination within the nebula.

This image was taken with maximum exposure/aperture of the Canon PowerShot G1 digital camera. (8secs/f2.5) with ISO 100.

Note that this exposure is much greater than that which is possible using my converted webcam which has maximum exposure time of 1/25sec. (See image of Orion Trapezium above)

If you do take similar images, do not despair when you first load the image into your computer - all I could see on the initial image were the trapezium and other local bright stars - work on the contrast and brightness with PaintShop Pro revealed the glowing nebula!

 

Canon EOS 650 35mm camera
Click Moon image
to view with some
features named.

The following two images of Mizar, a common easily separated double which then goes to another double, show the difference I have found with varying shutter speeds. I have took a film of various shutter speeds on Moon, Mizar and the Sun to allow another night to get finer adjustments nearer to the correct exposures.

Note that with 1 sec exposure Mizar and Zeta UMa are easily resolved (14" separation) but TYC3850-257-1 is not apparent. At 10 seconds exposure it is seen but other brighter stars have changed to larger images - I am not sure whether this is due to poor focussing or atmospheric turbulence.

See similar image using Canon G1 digital camera above on this page.

I believe if you start with the following shutter speeds on the LX90, with ASA 400 film, you will be near to getting reasonable exposure:

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