Equipment Swap (Sold Items) – Page 9 – Central Arkansas Astronomical Society

July 18, 2015March 27, 2017

For Sale: Meade ETX-125 Maksutov-Cassegrain with UHTC coatings and 497 hand controller and tripod — SOLD!!!

Sold!!!

Meade ETX-125 Maksutov-Cassegrain with UHTC coatings and 497 hand controller and tripod for sale. $350. Pickup in Little Rock. Contact: Edward Swaim, eswaim at gmail.com

I have too many other telescopes in this aperture and size range.

I won’t sell this to a beginner. Go buy a Dobsonian instead!

Works in both Alt-Az and equatorial modes. Best on the Moon, good on planets, very good on doubles. 127mm mirror diameter and 1900mm (f15) focal length is good for magnification, but limits the field of view. (You can’t see all the Pleiades at one time, for example.)

Light gathering and resolution in this 5-inch scope does not compare to larger telescopes. I get much more detail on my 10-inch reflector. Variations in the shades of gray on the moon, for example, knock my socks off in my 10-inch Newtonian. In the ETX, the Moon is sharp, you can use a lot of magnification, and it tracks. You can drive it around on the Moon with a lot of precision with the hand controller.

Gotos are surprisingly good with motor calibration and drive training.

Red dot finder and base for a Rigel Quickfinder attached. (Quickfinder not included.) Has the little compass-and-bubble cap for the eyepiece dust cover.

Manual and book, Mike Weasner’s “Using the Meade ETX,” included.

Simple, screw-on, 1.25” adapter for rear port included. This is for attaching a webcam or a star diagonal, which is useful if you de-fork the OTA and use it on an equatorial mount.

Has an electric focuser. The azimuth bearing wobbles enough to make manual focus tough. Electric focusers made for 125s are few and far between, so I made an electric focuser for an ETX-90 or ETX-105 fit. It is permanently attached to the focuser shaft with adhesive, so it isn’t coming off without a lot of delicate work. To use the focuser, press zero on the hand controller, then use the up and down buttons. Press zero again to control the scope.

I bought this telescope about 4 years ago from Meade “refurbished.” As far as I can tell, the only issue it came with is an intermittent connection in the battery compartment in the base. One of the contacts for the 8 AA batteries messes up occasionally. I seldom run it off AAs. It is more economical to run it from an AC to DC adaptor or battery pack based on D cells.

Tripod is a model 884 “deluxe field tripod” and works fine. I’ve made some modifications to it and have used it for a variety of other mounts and scopes, and I have used the heck out of it to mount lots of telescopes, not just the ETX, and it shows!. It has some rust on the steel parts. The tripod has an adjustable top so it the telescope can be used in equatorial mode.

Serial number 9U028602101209A.

June 18, 2015March 27, 2017

For Sale: 8″ Celestron SCT with Extras — SOLD

SOLD, the OTA at least. Finder, dew shield, and solar filter are still available.

Looking to upgrade your 5 or 6 inch SCT to an 8? For Sale one 8″ Celestron SCT. Not sure of age but probably manufactured between 2000 & 2005. Optics have Starbright Coatings and the scope is Fastar capabable. I have used this scope with a borrowed Faster adapter and imaged successfully at f/2. The scope is used and has the nicks that come with use but the scope still performs well and I am selling only because I got the fever and replaced it with a C9.25 recently. I’ve tried to include some of the nicks in the pictures so you’ll see what you are getting. The scope retains collimation well and has collimation knobs. The pictures include two shots of Jupiter that I recently took with this scope to show what it is capable of.
Included are: The scope itself with a visual back, collimation knobs, front and back dust caps, a CG-5 dovetail bar, a 50mm 7x finder and bracket, a white light glass solar filter, and a hard plastic dew shield.
Asking $450 plus shipping if needed. I will want to pay extra to the carrier to package everything so that they will guarantee safe delivery.

For more information contact Jim Dixon at jamesdixonlr at att dot net.

April 18, 2015March 27, 2017

For Sale: Celestron Advanced Series GT German Equatorial Mount – SOLD

Sold!!!

I’ve owned and used this mount for about 9 years now. It has been a solid performer. I still use it but am looking to upgrade to a mount that can carry a heavier load for astrophotography. The ASGT is officially capable of up to 30 lbs but that payload would be visual only. I’ve had an 8″ SCT with smallish guide scope, total of 20 lbs successfully. Celestron used to sell this with various OTA configurations including 5″ to 11″ SCT, 8″ to 10″ Newts and up to 6″ refractors. This ASGT has very good GOTO capabilities, once you’ve gone through the alignment process it can find what you want with ease. The hand controller has, I believe, 13,000 objects in its database. When I had a camera with a 0.4 degree FOV attached and good alignment done the object would be in the view on the first try. The periodic error is a limiting factor, I had to limit exposures to about 5 minutes and throw out a third due to the blip when I was imaging. However, if you are not imaging or doing short exposures that won’t be a problem. The power switch started developing a problem a couple years back and, not being incredibly electronically skilled, I sealed the switch in the on position with silicone sealant. See the picture below. The switch is probably easy to repair if you know how. Other than this, the mount has the scratches you would expect from a mount this age but is in good shape. Selling the items below for $450 with central Arkansas delivery or pickup. Will be happy to assemble mount and demo it for you. If interested, contact me at jamesdixonlr at att.com or 501-258-1914. Will deliver to central Arkansas or meet you halfway farther out in Arkansas.

The mount includes the following:

The mount itself.
A Nexstar hand controller.
Auxilliary port that allows you to connect your laptop among other things to the telescope. I’ve used this and planetarium software to drive the scope.
Tripod leg spreader.
11 lbs counterweight.
Both an AC and 12 volt DC power cord.