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It would be nice to get some good seeing in North Texas/SE Oklahoma, the seeing monitor of the Clear Sky Clock has been light blue to white for months.

Anyway, took the 14" LX850 to the TAS dark sky site last Wednesday. 100, 30, 30, 30 minutes LRGB, 10 minute subs.
A little soft but not too bad..

http://galaxyphoto.com/high_res/jw_apogee_lx850_m81.jpg

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Great image no doubt. Nobody can doubt Jason's talent.

No way to know however if he used an OAG or really used Starlock. If he did use Starlock, how long did he have to tweak and fiddle with the settings to get it right. How long do those settings last before needing to be tweaked again.
No way to know how many bad subs he had to throw out due to tracking errors.
So as I'v said in the past, while I don't doubt Jason's abilities at all, I do doubt how he arrives at the final image. Can the LX850 produce the image he has shown here, and his previous horse head, YES! I believe it can. My criticism is that we don't know how much easier it was due to the LX850. His response in the other thread leads me to believe that he has abandoned the built in features that are supposed to make this mount different than all the others.
Since the LX850 is a Mach1GTO look-a-like, why not just buy a Mach1GTO? At least you KNOW what you are getting and how well it will perform.




Edited by Pak (03/17/13 11:33 AM)

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Since the LX850 is a Mach1GTO look-a-like, why not just buy a Mach1GTO? At least you KNOW what you are getting and how well it will perform.

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Pak,

Really? Jason has been pretty up front with what he's doing. He posted on Facebook that he used Starlock if that helps assuage your fears that he's just making things up.

Honestly, do we know what people do to their final images anyways? Most people don't post their work flows, whether they shrunk the stars or used some type of morphological transformation to correct bad tracking.

He produced a good image at a tough image scale from a new mount.

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The point I am trying to make is that the LX850 is marketed and advertised as being able to reduce the frustration involved with beginning AP by including automatic or semi-automatic mechanisms to achieve results that others spend a lengthy time to achieve. Since Jason is an expert, the results he can and will achieve are automatically better than the results I can achieve. That goes without saying. So when he posts those images I have no way of knowing how he got there. Where did the mount fail, where did it excel? Where did the mount make things easier and faster and where did it not? These questions have not been answered. People need to understand that it is unlikely that they will be able to buy an LX850, put it all together and 30 minutes later start imaging with results that meet or exceed the expectations that this thread promises. Jason is probably a swell guy but he is a Meade insider and long time beta tester. Obviously Meade treats him well and in return I am sure he treats Meade well.

Caution is my recommendation. Let not everyone rush to place their orders based upon Jason's posts but instead wait a bit to see what real end users report.

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Since the LX850 is a Mach1GTO look-a-like, why not just buy a Mach1GTO? At least you KNOW what you are getting and how well it will perform.

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Right, you know that the Mach1GTO has no chance to carry a 14" scope and its accessories.

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Right, and I am not sure the LX850 does either. We will know more when Tony gets his set up and reports back. That is a LOT of weight on that mount. Do you not recall what happend on the LX80? Good for *half* of its advertised carrying capacity. Again, I recommend caution. Lets wait and see.

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