Telescope Reviews: Anyone Else Running This Complete Meade/Terabeam?

Well, after asking the question more than 9 months ago on this thread, I must assume that no-one came across this thread who succeeded in making the Meade/Terabeam scope/mount combination work as my two units work. Mine use the Dob-Driver II pendant controller to run the drive motors and track the heavens with wonderful accuracy and stability.
Once again, this is the most stable portable mount I've ever used - simply no focus shake, so no damping worries -- puts my old A-P 400 mount to shame.

I rather thought I might be the only one to have made this combination work because of the difficulty. First, I was lucky enough to get Jim Wegat's fully useable OTA with his custom machined back-plate -- ready to go (most people bought a messed-up OTA version with an epoxied mirror and no back-plate, scratched tube, etc). Then, I had to find a 2" diagonal which would fit both Jim's threading AND short enough to clear the bottom of this rather short mount. Not many would work, but I found a Russian diagonal which works perfectly. Then, perhaps most difficult was to get something to drive the stepper motors and track the stars. I happened to have a Dob Driver II pendant controller from another project and I played with it ALOT until I got it to work right. Testing the wiring by mostly trial and error with 16 wires takes a bit of time. Finally, I discovered that I could make the motors run not just quietly, but absolutely silent by running the Dob Driver II at 9V instead of 12V using a cheap variable voltage car lighter plug found at Walmart. At 12VDC, the motors worked fine but with a bit of a high pitched oscillating whine. At 9V, this totally goes away.

Kind of nice to have something so unique which works so well, but I'd honestly prefer to have a few friends with this same set-up to share the enjoyment.

To put this scope in perspective, I should say first it's the mount which is truly exceptional and the telescope is merely excellent. As a combination of scope and mount, I MUCH preferred it (even with its higher weight and bigger case for transport) to my exceptionally fine Questar 3.5 which I sold last year as it wasn't being used any longer.
The images in the Meade were obviously much brighter than the Questar as expected for a 5" scope and the sharpness and contrast were good enough that I preferred the Meade overall. And while the integrated mount on the Questar is very nicely done, the stability is merely average whereas the stability on this Meade mount is quite amazingly solid -- "like a rock" isn't much of an exaggeration. Stability means ALOT to me as I find focus shake and image wobble from touching the eyepiece or wind to be unnecessarily annoying. Add to this stability the ability to use 2" eyepieces, enough light to use a binoviewer and enough motor torque to hardly care about balancing the eyepiece load, and finally a look to the unit which is pretty much Star Wars "cool" and it was no contest. The Questar is a prettier jewel, but somehow not quite a cool -- to me, anyway. Cool is as cool does and this Meade does it for me.

A couple of good machinist gents have commented that they think they could make something like this mount for less than $4000., and it might look like this mount, but I must doubt it would be as solid and functionally perfect as this set-up.

Really DO wish there were more who succeeded with these mounts as they are definitely worth the effort and expense. I think there are at least 40 of these mounts out there and many more of the Terabeam OTAs.

--------------------
Charles

2X Meade/Terabeam ETX-125 variants w/DDII Control
One more Meade ETX-125AT UHTC
Just one APM/TMB 80/480 LZOS Super APO, FT Focuser
Working on 8"f/12 D&G folded bino-refractor
Denk binoviewers until work is done on above
Still working on elevated observatory/spaceship

Edited by CharlesStG (10/08/09 09:30 AM)