Re: I'm want to beat this XT-12 vs. Lightbridge-12 horse a little longer.

Jan, thanks for your response. I have added a few new
questions/remarks. If you would be so kind....

I don't know about the primary cell springs on the XT-12. But,
if it's a LightBridge, once you have the strong springs in the primary cell,
you have the option to eliminate the *locking* screws...

Great idea. I found out early on that the "locking" screws can distort
the mirror shape. Every time I had the mirror collimated, I would lock
it down only to find that it was out again. I only "gently" tighten
them now and it seems to be OK. I will take your advise on this for
sure.

It holds collimation quite well week
after week, with little or no adjustment necessary to hole even VERY tight
collimation via the autocollimator...

Autocollimator????

If you take the OTA structure apart for transporting it to another site,
mark your trusses, so that you put them back in the same position every
time...

Makes good sense.....

Get yourself a good set of collimation tools... CatsEye or Tectron have
excellent tools... I have a laser collimator, too, but I mostly use the
Tectron tools I already have, though I've been eyeing the new CatsEye 2"
set..

I am still collimating with the little cheap cap that comes w/the
scope. It seems to work very well in well lit environments. Not worth a
crap for night time collimating. I bought several laser collimators and
none were collimated themselves. I returned all of them. I would like
to have a good one though. Regardless, I do final collimation tweaking
by starlight.

As far as the other tools you mentioned, I have no experience with any
of them. I will check into them later on today.

This is not a serious issue, and is a good thing, if you like your movement
in both axes to be smooth and easy...

I remember when I went through my "get the bearings as slick as I can"
trip. I was on the hunt for a good lubricant. You advised me to stay
away from lubricants and if I must do something, go to virgin Teflon
bearings. Phil joked that once I had the bearings infinitely slick that
next I would be complaining about the scope not holding position. Well
I found dry Teflon lubricant and you guy's were right. I was in a
constant battle between lubes and counterweights. I leave it alone now.
I find that I like SOME friction... Just had to learn how to tap it
just right, that's all.

but the LightBridge became one of the all-time favorites right away...

I know you have some very nice scopes. You sent me a few pix early in
the year of an white 8" scope w/Spooner mirror. You seem to know about
mirrors. Are there any principle differences between ORION and MEADE
optics? MEADE brags diffraction limited. This means nothing to me
without knowing what the limits actually are. ORION's optics are
diffraction limited too (I would imagine); although they don't say so.


Thankx..

Errol
PASNOLA

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