Re: meade lightbridge. Was BIG dob recs

I have a Meade Lightbridege 12" Standard model and I think it's excellent.
I don't want people to get the wrong idea about this scope. All mass
produced scopes don't work great "out-of-the box", but with a little
tinkering can be made to work very well. For instance, I replaced the stock
mirror springs and now it holds collimation very well. I also added plastic
washers to the base and replaced the felt and azimuth bearings with virgin
teflon. The motions are as smooth now as any Dob I have tried. The optics
are figured very well with an excellent star test. Saturn snaps into focus
at 300X. I also flocked the upper cage and mirror section, as well as
painting all white surfaces you can see down the tube black. It has
excellent contrast now. So with a little work up front, this can be an
excellent scope. Mine is a keeper.

Alan Zaza

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Cone" <cone@No-Spam>
To: "The Astronomy Connection" <sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 6:36 PM
Subject: [TAC] meade lightbridge. Was BIG dob recs

> There was a 12" Lightbridge up at the Sierra Buttes class this summer.
> While it looks good in photos, I was unimpressed in person. Fit and
> finish up close is mediocre. The supplied red dot finder was a piece of
> garbage that could not be properly adjusted. I worked on that one awhile,
> and could only drive the reticle "close" to the center of the eyepiece
> field. Unbelievable. Collimation on the scope was way off. You could not
> bring an object to a sharp focus. One of the instructors spent about 40
> minutes helping the student get it closer. From the sounds and dialogue
> in the dark, it was clearly a frustrating process.
> I would NOT recommend this scope to anyone when there are so many well
> made scopes on the market. Better to buy a used, well-crafted and
> designed scope than a new "affordable" scope is my advice. --
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-- 
What TAC Is About.
http://www.observers.org/Join.shtml
Webcam, DSLR, CCD Imaging use NorCal AI.
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http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/tac-ops/
Sub-scribe or Unsub-scribe from TAC 
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