LX200 Limitations

Jul 13, 2003

Many who aspire to do astrophotography choose the Meade LX200 as their photography platform, and with good reason. It is contains decent quality optics, precision pointing, a solid fork mount and tons of accessories, all at a very good price. But those who actually own the scope soon find out that it too has its limitations for astrophotography, most notibly a slightly curved field, vignetting when used with focal reducers, and a mount/tripod that adds a bit too much vibration for high powered use under less than perfect conditions.

I’ve done my fair share of piggyback photography and have loved utilizing the LX200 for this purpose, so when I purchased the Tak FSQ-106, as shown atop the LX200, I thought that with the appropriate counterweighting and with my recent Dec bearing upgrade that I would be able to successfully mount the Tak to the top of LX200 until I got a good EQ mount. For the most part, I thought wrong.

The performance of the Tak with the LX200 for general purpose visual work is acceptable at the low powers that give the Tak such great rich-field views.  But when the wind picks up or I try to up the power on the Tak, such as for Mars, I get a steady oscillation in the fork arms. This translates to less than perfect eyepiece views at high powers or in slight windy conditions.  For this reason, I doubt I’ll try much prime focus photography with the Tak while piggybacked atop the LX200. The fork arms of the LX200 simply isn’t constructed with the intent to piggyback 20 lbs. of scope and dovetail accessories, not to mention the other 20 lbs. of counterweight at the bottom of the tube. Even though I can release the clutches on the scope and the OTAs do not move because of appropriate balancing, the extra weight still causes the fork arms to bob up and down with just the slightest influence.

For those considering doing piggyback work on their own LX200, just remember than this platform has its limitations. Light weight refractors and smaller focal length camera lenses will work well atop the LX200, as testified by the quality of the 300mm Nikon ED shots in the Deep Sky Gallery. But when you add 40 extra lbs. of stuff on the scope, not including my cameras, you can expect some vibrations that will make photography impossible. So if you buy a 4” apochromatic refractor for astrophotography, you’d better plan on getting a solid EQ mount very soon thereafter.