36 replies to this topic

[Stacy]

Hi,

I made this longer dew guard for my AR-5 refractor to replace the short wimpy one it came with.

I got a 24” length of 6” drain riser from Home Depot for about $13. It’s about 1/8” thick plastic of some kind. I cut it in half so my dew shield would be 12” long. It needed a little sanding on the inside to make it fit on the scope, but it now fits nice and snug.

I applied to the outside:

1 coat of plastic primer.
3 coats of high gloss white (not an exact match, but close enough).
1 coat of clear enamel.

On the inside:

1 coat of “stone texture” spray paint.
1 coat of ultra flat black.

I light sanded the exterior prior to painting, and used steel wool between coats. I sanded the interior with a med. grade sandpaper so the texture would stick well. I left a 1.5” area on the inside scope end un-textured or painted so it would fit on the holder nicely.

This shot is during the exterior painting.

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[Stacy]

This is the finished dew shade.

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[Stacy]

This is the dew shade on the scope. The shade weighs about 1 2/3 lbs. I had to move the scope about 2" in it's rings to compensate for the extra weight.

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[Stacy]

I also found these little 2" couplers in the plumbing section. They fit perfectly on a Meade standard finder to extend the dew shade. 48 cents.

Regards,
Stacy

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[Trever]

Looks very nice and professional. I may need to do this with My Celestron...

I was also actually thinking of painting it white but I am afraid of ruining it.

[777Guy]

Stacy,
I personally never liked the short dew sheild that comes with the AR5 and AR6. Your fix looks really nice and is clever engineering. I have seen the AR5 and 6 at Anacortes Telescope and Wild Bird and have been intrigued with the possiblity of obtaining one without the GoTo feature. How do you like your scope? Do you recommend it? Do you know how it compares with the AR6 and Celestron 150?
I am leaving town tonight for an overseas trip and be back in 10 days in case you don't get a response from me.

Jim

[777Guy]

I will see if the latest revision has a lo 3/4. But you may have to wait till I get another revision. Some Euro charts are updated less frequently than domestic charts. I will try to remember but if you are just using it for msfs then I don't think it is that critical as the changes are usaully not noticeable anyway.
Jim

[Stacy]

Stacey, the next time you use your finder scope, let me know if you can see the dew shield as kind of a blur. I believe that Meade used these short dewshields on the 5" and 6" because the finder scope is not mounted high enough off the OTA to visually clear a longer one.

I remember your post about that from before so I checked it early and didn’t notice any darkness from the shield in the finder FOV, but that was inside the house. I’ll have to wait to get it outside but I think with the 5” , the shield will not get in the way. (hope)

Regards,
Stacy

[Stacy]

Stacy,
I personally never liked the short dew sheild that comes with the AR5 and AR6. Your fix looks really nice and is clever engineering. I have seen the AR5 and 6 at Anacortes Telescope and Wild Bird and have been intrigued with the possiblity of obtaining one without the GoTo feature. How do you like your scope? Do you recommend it? Do you know how it compares with the AR6 and Celestron 150?
I am leaving town tonight for an overseas trip and be back in 10 days in case you don't get a response from me.

Jim

Hi Jim,

I have heard that the AR-5 is a little more consistent in its quality of optics than the AR-6, however the AR-6 has an adjustable cell where the 5’s do not. The Celestron 150 is a big unit and has a shorter FL, but many people around here own one (or have owned one) and could probably give you a little better idea than I could about it’s optics. Generally speaking the faster the achro, the more “color”. I love the views out of the AR-5 and it’s a fun scope to use. I have heard there are some “issues” with the LXD55 mounts (especially the GOTO and the aluminum tripod).

I bought it as an OTA on Astromart and have seen them there since for $250 - $300 for the OTA, rings, finder, diagonal etc. It’s very happy sitting on the CG-5 (Advanced Series, non GoTo). The tripod extends enough to get it up in the air very nicely. I know there are people, who frown on the GC-5 series mounts, but it holds my 8” newt just fine and I have not upgraded it or even changed the grease (yet). At $339 it’s a lot of mount for the money IMHO.

In answer to your question, I do recommend the scope, but not the mount or tripod. However I believe some (Dave) for instance have had good results with the mount. The Guy I bought the scope from (Gig Harbor) has his mount on a pier and holds his Borg 80mm. He bought the whole scope just to get the mount, so obviously some are happy with them.

I can’t wait to get out with the new dew shield. It’s a bit heavier than I would have liked, but it’s quite solid.

Regards,
Stacy

[Stacy]

Stacy, does it reduce your FOV at all? That is a first rate job you did on the dew shield, BTW...nice job.

Hey thanks Tom! No it does not reduce the FOV at all. I was really happy with the way the inside “texture” turned out. It’s nice and bumpy and very black. Felt probably would help with the dew a little more though.

Regards,
Stacy

[Stelios]

In answer to your question, I do recommend the scope, but not the mount or tripod.

Let me second this. I have had recently over a friend's AR-5 for "evaluation". Basically the mount is going back to Meade -- it is simply unworkable, every so often it just slews off and from that moment it's so much off on every subsequent slew.

But the AR-5 scope now -- that's another story. Very nice little refractor. Yesterday (mounted on my CG-5 goto -- a perfect fit) it gave us a nice teaser split of the double-double with clean black between, then went on to Saturn and presented us with the Cassini division, an equatorial belt, and 4 moons (this in fairly light-polluted skies). It showed five stars in the Trapezium (the fifth barely glimpsed but confirmed by the map afterwards). Easy split of Castor followed. Mars showed a little detail at 200X but it's getting to be too small. But overall fabulous performance, color was not at all noticeable on Saturn and very slightly on Mars, a non-issue on other targets. The moon had no appreciable color, but was so bright that we had to use a filter even at 120X.

It is completely unbelievable to me (dating back to the early 60's as observer) that you can get a refractor like this for around $250 today. Please note that I am talking about the AR-5, the AR-6 has much more color (from my observing with one at a star party) and (subjective) is not quite as sharp.

[Stacy]

Hey Stelios!

Is that the CG-5 Advanced GoTo you are talking about? I have been curious about the accuracy of the GoTo on that mount but I haven't seen a review yet. Have you documented the performance/accuracy/use of the GoTo version?

Regards,
Stacy

[777Guy]

Schultze,
Just got back from a 10 day military charter and had some new revisions. I have a 3/4 LO Europe chart dated June 13th. If you still want it let me know and I'll mail it to you. My email is 777arkangel@comcast.net. or you can respond on this forum.
Jim Baird