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Agreed. My speculation is based on the assumption that it will (eventually) perform as advertised. But you are right, the comparisons are just speculation at this point. That can be fun, though, no?

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and people have actually used it and had it Plate Solve,

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I dont believe it will do a true platesolve.
If it works like the LS scopes, i suspect it will merely find the brightest star in the FOV of the widefield camera and centre that, "on the assumption" that the scope is pointing roughly in the right direction to begin with.

A fun test, once the Starlock firmware is updated, would be to do a HiPrecision slew, and manually move/adjust the RA/DEC axis on the clutches to put a different bright star into the FOV.
If it still centres it, then its not platesolving

Andrew

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BTW on the topic of differential flexure I believe its a non-issue with this mount.

For my current setup (imaging with 60Da) I'm am pretty much limited to 10-15 min exposures in which case this issue is less of a problem.

If I decide to get a CCD camera again I will most likely get one of the new SBIG or QSI cameras that have the OAG/guidechip built in and use that on the auxiliary auto guider port on the LX800.

So the starlock will be doing its fast ~1 sec guide/corrections for mount errors, and then ill have the OAG on the CCD doing slow corrections 10-30s for differential flexure.

So win/win situation and I would still be saving money.

But of course this is all dependent starlock working as advertised...

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BTW on the topic of differential flexure I believe its a non-issue with this mount.

For my current setup (imaging with 60Da) I'm am pretty much limited to 10-15 min exposures in which case this issue is less of a problem.

If I decide to get a CCD camera again I will most likely get one of the new SBIG or QSI cameras that have the OAG/guidechip built in and use that on the auxiliary auto guider port on the LX800.

So the starlock will be doing its fast ~1 sec guide/corrections for mount errors, and then ill have the OAG on the CCD doing slow corrections 10-30s for differential flexure.

So win/win situation and I would still be saving money.

But of course this is all dependent starlock working as advertised...

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I'm afraid this solution won't actually work to address differential flexure. The guide corrections made by the SBIG guide chip through the main scope would be seen by the Starlock as drift, and would be corrected right back. The two guiders would "fight" with each other.

It is theoretically possible to do what you are suggesting--SBIG has actually been working on it for a few years--bit it's not as simple as adding a second guider.

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I was told that if you connect a guide camera it will auto-disable Starlock.

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Gday Blueman

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and people have actually used it and had it Plate Solve,

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I dont believe it will do a true platesolve.
If it works like the LS scopes, i suspect it will merely find the brightest star in the FOV of the widefield camera and centre that, "on the assumption" that the scope is pointing roughly in the right direction to begin with.

A fun test, once the Starlock firmware is updated, would be to do a HiPrecision slew, and manually move/adjust the RA/DEC axis on the clutches to put a different bright star into the FOV.
If it still centres it, then its not platesolving

Andrew

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Perhaps, but at $7300 one would think this would not be necessary!
Blueman

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One thing has been going around in my head with regards to this mount. Many previous Meade mounts have had tons and tons of cheap modifications available for them in the after market that drastically improved performance.

If this mount is easy to tune, it might become a favorite among tinkerers. I would not be surprised if people eventually managed to tune it to the extent where The PE would be well within G11 territory.

If the mount manages to stay in market long enough you will see some very extensive hypertuning services being sold on the internet from various vendors.

You'll also find people selling better bearings and some such where mead had taken shortcuts. Also be prepared to find third party counter weights with quick release clutch and a locking mechanism introduced int he market. The LX200 based electronics also translate into out of the box compatibility with most software and other types of widgets.

My guess is, once that starts happening, this mount plus a $200 in after market modifications would result in an outstanding mount that delivers performance well worth total investment put into it. Another thing to consider is that the Meade OTA's are good value for money when compared to the Celestron OTA's & at F8 focal ratio and built in crayford style focuser, these would probably work very well for many people. Even if the EdgeHD optics are superior, they do cost a hefty premium.

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BTW on the topic of differential flexure I believe its a non-issue with this mount.

For my current setup (imaging with 60Da) I'm am pretty much limited to 10-15 min exposures in which case this issue is less of a problem.

If I decide to get a CCD camera again I will most likely get one of the new SBIG or QSI cameras that have the OAG/guidechip built in and use that on the auxiliary auto guider port on the LX800.

So the starlock will be doing its fast ~1 sec guide/corrections for mount errors, and then ill have the OAG on the CCD doing slow corrections 10-30s for differential flexure.

So win/win situation and I would still be saving money.

But of course this is all dependent starlock working as advertised...

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I'm afraid this solution won't actually work to address differential flexure. The guide corrections made by the SBIG guide chip through the main scope would be seen by the Starlock as drift, and would be corrected right back. The two guiders would "fight" with each other.

It is theoretically possible to do what you are suggesting--SBIG has actually been working on it for a few years--bit it's not as simple as adding a second guider.

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Hmmm one would think that since starlock is integrated into this system it would be programmed that any guide commands coming from the auxiliary guider port are "correct" and force starlock to use the new position of the it's guidestar after the CCD guider makes a correction as the new center.

Either way if it is not programmed like this it would be quite simple to hack the firmware and make starlock re-center after each auxiliary guide command.

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BTW on the topic of differential flexure I believe its a non-issue with this mount.

For my current setup (imaging with 60Da) I'm am pretty much limited to 10-15 min exposures in which case this issue is less of a problem.

If I decide to get a CCD camera again I will most likely get one of the new SBIG or QSI cameras that have the OAG/guidechip built in and use that on the auxiliary auto guider port on the LX800.

So the starlock will be doing its fast ~1 sec guide/corrections for mount errors, and then ill have the OAG on the CCD doing slow corrections 10-30s for differential flexure.

So win/win situation and I would still be saving money.

But of course this is all dependent starlock working as advertised...

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I'm afraid this solution won't actually work to address differential flexure. The guide corrections made by the SBIG guide chip through the main scope would be seen by the Starlock as drift, and would be corrected right back. The two guiders would "fight" with each other.

It is theoretically possible to do what you are suggesting--SBIG has actually been working on it for a few years--bit it's not as simple as adding a second guider.

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I was told that if you connect a guide camera it will auto-disable Starlock.

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Quite possibly, but then you are relying completely on the internal SBIG chip. That's fine, of course, but it's not what JSnuff1 outlined. Still, off axis guiding would take care of any possible differential flexure, but only by completely turning off one of the main selling points of the LX800--the integrated guiding.

Once the bugs are worked out, I'll be very interested to see whether the built-in guiding is capable of producing good results with a larger SCT such as the 14". That's a lot of focal length to handle, and many amateur astrophotographers have given up on separate guide scopes once they get much above 2,000mm focal length. It's challenging to get an accurate centroid when your guide scope focal length less than 1/3 of your main scope's focal length (especially with an inexpensive guide camera that may not have the lowest noise floor). It's also challenging to eliminate flex in the guide scope, guide scope mounting, guide scope focuser, primary mirror, primary scope optical tube, and primary focuser/draw tube. That's a lot of elements to hold steady, and in the past SCT's haven't been renowned for their ability to totally eliminate mirror flop--even with mirror luck. I hope that once the kinks are worked out it lives up to expectations.

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Hmmm one would think that since starlock is integrated into this system it would be programmed that any guide commands coming from the auxiliary guider port are "correct" and force starlock to use the new position of the it's guidestar after the CCD guider makes a correction as the new center.

Either way if it is not programmed like this it would be quite simple to hack the firmware and make starlock re-center after each auxiliary guide command.

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Don't forget that a 14" at f/5 (with the reducer) is 1780mm.

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Don't forget that a 14" at f/5 (with the reducer) is 1780mm.

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Very true. If you use a reducer, you would at least get a closer match in focal lengths between the guide scope and main scope--just about 2x instead of >3x. It will help a bit on the differential flexure issue as well since smaller issues that are barely visible at f/8 would disappear at f/5. That's still a lot of weight and focal length, though.

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And a pretty fast f-stop, leading to shorter exposures.

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A fun test, once the Starlock firmware is updated, would be to do a HiPrecision slew, and manually move/adjust the RA/DEC axis on the clutches to put a different bright star into the FOV.
If it still centres it, then its not platesolving

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Received an update on my system a few hours ago via e-mail. Seems that during testing last night they discovered another bug in the firmware. They are making a change and trying to get it re-flashed by tonight so they can test again.

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Did they give you an indication as to where they might be doing the field test? They don't have an observatory anymore. If they are testing outside their office building, then maybe I should swing by after work and keep an eye on them My office is just few blocks away.

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Good news is the more they test mine the more bugs they seem to squash

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Received an update on my system a few hours ago via e-mail. Seems that during testing last night they discovered another bug in the firmware. They are making a change and trying to get it re-flashed by tonight so they can test again.

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Did they give you an indication as to where they might be doing the field test? They don't have an observatory anymore. If they are testing outside their office building, then maybe I should swing by after work and keep an eye on them My office is just few blocks away.

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Meade moved their headquarters to Melmac? Cool!

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