HELP!! Cant decide on purchace!!

[CLeRiCNovA]

So guys thaks for all the advise!! I did purchace a sn-10. I recieved it last week Thursday. I put it together that night after work. The next day I got to the collimating page in the manual. To put it lightly the mirrors were way way way outta wack. I called Meade to make sure I was right and it was outta wack. At first the guy sounded like he had no idea what i was talking about, I finally got thru to him and he agreed it was all funky.
So I tried to collimate it. It took me 2 hours to get it close, but that was as far as i could get it and it wasnt right yet. I tried to get it perfect but everytime I tried to adjust something it made it worse. I determined that it had been damaged in shipping(the box was beat up and looked like it mightve been opend b4). So I called opticplanet they were nice about it and said to send it on back. Unfortunately It is more complicated that I let on cause I hate typing. The good thing was on the day I got it it started raining and didnt stop till Wed. of this past week. UPS then picked it up on Thurs. and today it snowed!!! So I wouldnt have been able to use it neway. Im still impaitent tho since they still have my money and all I got was a tease.
O well, OpticsPlanet had to order one from Meade so it was going to take awhile to recieve the new one. While I had it tho, it did look impressive. I can see how adding a camera or any weight would put the mount over the top and not take any good pics, or the focuser it wasnt much better than the one in the bargin bin tasco I had. But Im a noob and for now even tho they arent so good I won't notice since what i have to compare it to is the 600mm 2.5 inch taco with 3/4 eyepieces!! LOL I'll write back as soon as I get to look thru it at the stars.

[Bob327]

I'm a little late in this thread BUT I think YOU LUCKED OUT....

I've been in this hobby for over 50 years and I would NEVER EVER have recommended the SN-10 NEWT as a first scope to ANYBODY...

In truth I would not have recommended the 8" Version either...BOTH are GREAT SCOPES but both are a royal pain in the (since you are not a man of the cloth) ASS) to use ...Big, bulky, difficult to use visually in some parts of the sky and extremely sensitive to collimation as you found out...

MY major complain however is they are just about the most user unfriendly set ups for anyone to use ...I would never ever own a Newt on a Gem...mainly because I do not want to make my Chiropractor a rich man,.

I'd buy the SC-8 ...stick a Focal reducer on it to lower the thing from an F/10 to and F/6.6 scope IF I wanted to get into imaging...the LXD75 Mount is more then amble for the OTA...(I have a Meade LXD55 mount which I swap a Meade AR-5 refractor and a Celestron C8 on and off of..handles both fine and "maybe" it would hold the SB-8 ok but iI seriously doubt it would work with the SN-10 for imaging...and it would be marginal for visual...

Like I said you lucked out in my opinion...

Bob G.

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[CLeRiCNovA]

Well if its about it being complicated, I thought that if I was dumb that the wording in the manual wouldve killed me. Thank the lord for blessing me with a decent intelligece level and because of that lol Im pretty confident that I can figure it out. I think I understand tho what you are sayin tho Bob. Im very curious as to what Ill need to do to the OTA when it turns so the eye piece is facing an akward position. Do you just loosen the rings and spin it? I am woried about my view of polaris tho. Ive got a buncha trees in the way I think(it hasnt been clear enough since I ordered the scope to check).
I chose this scope cause I wanted the biggest aparture for the buck. Yeah a dob would prolly be better in that adspect but I thought the mount would be better for imaging.
Yeah it does shake easily so wind would definately affect it. As I said before tho since it is a first good scope the headache wount come till later when I get more hours under my belt. I am confused as to why and how I lucked out. Cause the company took it back? I am still going to recieve a new sn-10. It is heavy, but i am young strong backed guy so Im not to worried about that. Why would it be marginal for visual use? I dont see it shaking alot w/o wind that is unless I plan to bump into it every 2 secs or refocus it alot. But alas I am a noob so I dont know for sure what Im talkin about lol. Wish me luck!!

[Bob327]

I said you lucked out because I though they took back the scope and refunded your money because they did not have a replacement in stock......so that you would have to start all over again on what scope/mount to purchase...

Dealers should take back defective products ...PERIOD and I would expect them to... so no I did not mean you lucked out because they took it back...

My comments may have been out of line because personally I just do not like (nor have any use for ) Newts on Gem mounts .. Others may have different opinions.

That said:

Google Wilcox rings...these are rotating rings that allow you to "spin" the ota and always have the eyepiece in a usable position. They work!

BUT but yes you can just simply loosen the OEM rings and turn the scope BUT that method just ( ain't ) the best way to solve the problem... You can loose your alignment or destroy the GoTo accuracy of the scope.. Not saying it will happen ..just saying that it does happen... and it is not real easy to do on a cold winter night in the dark with cold fingers...Rotating rings solve the problem completely..

On the trees and tree branches ... most of us can relate to that problem.....However chainsaws work wonders.. LOL ..

On a personal note I have a good sized backyard and could see Polaris from just about any location in the yard... BUT the only place I could build an observatory (besides in the middle of the swimming pool) was in one of the few places in the yard that I could not see Polaris... DRAT !

My only solution was to elevate my observatory. So I built the floor 7 foot off the ground so that the OTA actually sits close to 11 feet off the ground... I now have a clear view of Polaris.

Good luck...The scope you got is a good scope...nothing wrong with it at all....

In fact I would not mind mounting one in my observatory because I would not have to move it EVER, and Once aligned I would never have to align it again except maybe to tweak the alignment every year or so) BUT I would definately have a set of quality wilcox rotating rings on it ...my 66 year old body does not bend very wel anymore

. Bob G

[Dale002]

Hi Clericnova,
Welcome aboard ! We have a bunch of great guys here.
I spoke with the wife she agreed, bigger is better.

[CLeRiCNovA]

Thanks for the explaination Bob. Truly I appreciate any input anyone has weather or not it goes along with my plan. So no none of what you said was out of line so no worries there! Yeah a chian saw LOL considering they arent all on my property I might cause some trouble if I just go all Paul Bunyan on em ;-P. What you did at your place is the way to go, unfortunately Im pretty poor and buying this scope was at my limit for cash so building a dome is out the question. Hell I bought this scope as quick as I did mainly for the free eye piece kit. still waiting on that(said allow 4-8 weeks ugggg).

Thanks Dale and yeah most smart women know bigger is better LOLOLOL!

Again thanks to all of the input positive or negative. After all if you can't learn from mistakes what good are ya right..?

[roverich]

So what did you end up getting ? .... Just curious .... You dont need to be going paul bunyon on them ..Scopes get damged in transit all the time ....

[Dale002]

Great choice on the scope.
The rings are almost a must.
A couple of guys at the club have the same scope and some have the 8"
All have the rings.
One thing that I would suggest is to buy the extended warranty from meade.
I have seen a few issues wth LXD75 mount at our club,usualy when it gets overloaded which is easy to do. Never the less it's cheap insurance.
Also the go-to on this mount are not the best for newbie as they are not perfect. With best alingment they will put the image in the fov but, if you are new at this, sometime you do not see it. The four main closest planets and the moon will be no problem. deep space will be a different story.
Do your self a favor and get a 30 or higher wide view eyepiece to locate items.
Most important, have fun!

[CLeRiCNovA]

Well I am pretty good on seeing things in the sky. I may be a noob to the eq-g mount and autostar, but I can read star maps and have found a few deep sky objects in my binocs. ie.. m31, m13,I found neptune this summer when it was trailing Jupiter(with a map that was in astronomy or sky n telescope). Didnt look like much through 25x50 binocs.2 easy ones the Orion nebulae, and Beehive cluster. So I am very confident I can figure it out. I did get the 411 on the extended warranty. It turns out you dont have to buy it till the 1st year runs out, of course its a 2 yr ext. instead of 3 yrs then but ethier way thats the way it would be. So I do plan to do that asap. As I said tho it tapped me for cash for a month or so AND xmas is commin so I'll wait till the 1st year is up to get the extended.
I got the eye piece kit from Meade with this purchase(free) it came with a 6.4, 9.7, 12.4, 32, 40 plus the 26 that comes with the scope and a 2x barlow(filters too) so Im guessin the 40 or 32 will work nicely when trying to locate those faint DSOs then hone in on them with the higher powers.
Truely Im pretty sure understand the alignment proceedures, there are like 3-4 of them eachone more accurate than the previous. Each one I understood and think I could perform easily, my yard is the limiting factor. If I was in a square mile field No problem, but at my house im basicly lookin straight up or east. I'm sure that might cause a problem for alignment stars(for the 2,or 3 star method). As for the easiest method I was worried about my view of polaris, yeah I can see it, but can I get the scope to see it.
Roverich I got the Meade SN-10AT. Hopefully when I recieve the new one its not damaged and close to collimated. I'm ichin for the eyepiece kit too. I hope it doesn't take 4-8 weeks. Did anyone else recieve that offer and purchace a lx90 or lxd75 this summer? If so how long did it take to get the kit?

Honestly I don't care if I have to take the scope somewhere else I just wanted to see all the DSOs and fine details of the planets that I had to buy a nice scope no matter what problems arise. It was a burning desire that never seemed to let up. Im sure you all can attest to that in yourselves!!!

Boy I sure like to write books ^^^ LOL Later fellas