Since I was a young lad I have owned a variety of telescopes. I learned how to find my way around the heavens with sky maps from astronomy books. I even started an astronomy society at secondary school. Over the years my knowledge of the night sky grew but I found it was not as extensive as other amateur astronomers and whenever I used my trusty eight inch reflector it would take me a great deal of time and effort to find deep sky objects in the light polluted London skies by just star-hopping. Sometimes, I was viewing only a dozen or so objects in a single observing session. This left me feeling short-changed on nights that were crystal clear. My enthusiasm for observing was ebbing away and I was using the telescope less and less.
In 2002 I decided to purchase my first Go-To telescope. I opted for the Meade LXD55 6 inch refracting telescope with Autostar™ Go-To computerised control handset. Unlike Go-To mounts of alt-azimuth design such as the Meade ETX, LX200 or Celestron’s NexStar, the LXD55 models were equatorially mounted. I was one of the first in the UK to own this particular model and was excited at the prospect of finding thousands of objects; although perhaps not in a single evening!
I realised, however that despite owning an equatorially mounted telescope for many years, it still felt that a lot of effort was required to set up the instrument to perform Go-To alignments accurately. In the early days when I was learning how to use a Go-To telescope, finding an object was sometimes a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. The software on-board the Autostar handset was not as accurate as it is nowadays. When the telescope was finally ready for use, it would leave me very little time to do any actual observing. I felt I was back to square one!
Thankfully, I realised I was not alone with my experiences. LXD owners via internet user-groups and at sky camps described similar experiences.
It took a little while to master the Go-To setup procedure, but as I did I gained a new enthusiasm for observing as I was able to observe many more objects in a single observing session than with a just a traditional telescope.
A few years later I acquired the next model which was an LXD75 8 inch SCT on a much superior re-engineered mount. I sold the LXD55 mount but kept the 6 inch refractor OTA which I have to this day.
The Meade comes with a two inch R&P focus mount so to maximise your observing ability I would recommend that two inch accessories are used. Recently, I acquired a two inch ED Barlow lens to complete my ‘two inch solution’: two inch focuser, Williams optics two inch diagonal and two inch eyepiece. Most telescopes come with a two inch eyepiece focusers and I would definitely recommend considering two inch accessories
I wanted to share my experiences with the astronomical community so I decided to write a book about the Meade LXD series. It took about two years from concept to publication and a lot of work was involved but it gives me great satisfaction to know that my book is helping Meade LXD users worldwide understand their telescope.
I don’t think I would part with my Meade anytime sometime soon unless it is to get an apochromatic model of similar aperture). Perseverance and patience brings its rewards and it was worth sticking with the telescope in the end.
Nowadays with add-ons such as GPS and magnetic compasses built into the telescope mount setting up a Go-To telescope is far easier.
With today’s skies seriously affected by light pollution, Go-To has become the observing
solution to assist astronomers in searching for those faint fuzzy objects.
