Wedge questions

[samos]

Im considering getting a wedge for my 8" LX200 GPS.
Is Meade's the best bet ... what about Milburn?
whats the difference between polar alignment, drift alignment and iterative alignment? Do you have to do all three?

thanks in advance ...

[AustinPSD]

The Meade folks will perhaps be along soon to address your first question.

In the mean time:

- all three are forms of polar alignment

There is the notion of "rough" polar alignment, in which the mount is aligned roughly north along its polar axis, and perhaps sighted on something like Polaris or the southern hemisphere equivalent.

This is followed by drift alignment (aka iterative alignment), which refines the rough polar alignment by assessing east/west and north/south drift in RA and DEC to increase the accuracy of the mount's polar alignment.

Let's reduce this to two cases - rough polar alignment, and drift-polar alignment. For any reasonably long exposure astrophotography, you must at least roughly polar align the mount. For any true long exposure astrophotography, you must drift align the mount.

In the case of a GOTO telescope, increasing the accuracy of your polar alignment improves pointing accuracy over a long observing session, and improves tracking accuracy. In the case of astrophotography, drift alignment maximizes the ability of the mount to accurately track an object, and reduces the number and magnitude of guiding corrections requires to provide precision tracking, which is absolutely necessary for long exposure imaging.

[Joe Lalumia]

LOTS!! of difference in quality and stability between the Meade wedge and the Milburn. However all fork mounts exhibit some "flex" even with a good wedge. that's why most astrophotographers have moved to GEM (EQ) mounts. The Milburn is much better.

[DaltonSkyGazer]

I use the Meade Ultrawedge which is nice and stable and improvement over Meades original wedge for my 12" LX. Setting it up is real pain due to location of the allen screws, very limited ability to turn allen screws more than a few degrees at time. Besides that one point, the Ultrawedge has worked well for me. My friend has the Millburn wedge and loves it. I had snagged the UltraWedge few years back at bargain discount when economy tanked, which is why I chose it, the $$ I grabbed it for was the deciding factor, otherwise would have grabbed a Millburn.

[chelseablue]

For the 8" the standard Meade wedge is plenty, yes? It's what I have but it seems a little worn out and I'm starting to think I need a new one. The Milburn looks quite expensive but I'm sure you get what you pay for.

[Joe Lalumia]

The heavier the wedge the less FLEX in the optical assembly.

[choy]

for the price of these wedges i feel it would be better for me to forget about them and just de-fork my ota and get a nice mount for a few dollars more.

[jenniferchristine]

When the wedge I'm using eventually gives up - it's not good as it is, I shall just gt an NEQ6 pro and have done with it.