A friend contacted me saying they had a telescope that they did not want anymore, did I want it.  It was broken and they did not know if it could be fixed.  Sounded like an ETX 60.  If I could fix it I could give it to someone to help them get started. When my friend showed up he had two telescopes.  The first was an ETX 60 with a broken clutch dial on the right side.  But, to my surprise, he also had an ETX 125.  He wouldn't take any money for them and said his wife was thrilled they were out of the house. Both had been purchased used, at least 10 years ago to feed an interest of their young son.   He is now out of college, working and living out of state.  He no longer wanted them so they stood in the family room gathering dust.  So I received two ETX, an assortment of eyepieces, a Celestron Sky Scout personal planetarium and some other assorted stuff.    New toys to play with. I have not been able to get much sky time due to persistent clouds, so I have been working with the new used telescopes.

The ETX 60 has been repaired.   I don't know if it is a common breakage but the threads on the right clutch dial separated from the dial.  aysen backpackI found an epoxy that works well with plastics and that did the trick.  portabrace backpack c100The ETX 60 is back in service. tybalt backpackI tested the drive system and the optics and all seems to be in good order.  echo 770t backpack blower for saleThat will be going to my daughter's boyfriend, Chris  It was actually Chris who got me back into astronomy by showing me the ISS going over on a cold February morning 2 years ago.  csuf backpack

Oddly enough he does not have a telescope. The ETX 125 seems to be in good shape.  ogio renegade rss backpack for saleOptics seem fine and the motors work. The tripod has a built in wedge so it can be EQ aligned.  This originally came with the Meade 492 controller that will slew the scope and, I think it can initiate tracking too if you EQ align the scope. However I won't be using the 492 it as they had acquired a Meade 497 GoTo controller which seems to work fine.  Holds the date but won't hold the time.      I have only had a couple of brief sessions with the 125 to check the optics.  Both times I used it manually where I was pointing it at gaps in the clouds to check the optics.   And I had a daytime session to check the motor drive systems. Hopefully we will have some better weather and I can get it out for an extended session and put the GoTo through its paces.  

I note that, by design, this thing is very front heavy.  I am going to add some weight to the rear to counter balance it a bit to take some load off the old drive system. But this all leads up to what is happening with my ETX 80 and the Revolution Imager R2 system.   I was going to do a report on this system but, as some of you may recall if you read my review on the ETX 80 in this forum, after 11 months with the ETX 80 AT  it developed problems.  I had been VERY happy with the scope up to that point.  However Meade agreed to replace it under warranty.    That took a long time but eventually I had one of the new ETX 80 Observers that started shipping in 2016.   Cool, I have the new and improved model.  I was quite excited. The ETX 80 Observer is an update to the earlier backpack observatory.  They redesigned the fork mount so that the OTA can easily be deforked.   This made it a bit heavier.  Then they combined it with a much lighter tripod than the one I had with the ETX 80 AT. 

The new combination is awful.  Shakes like crazy making it hard to focus and if there is any breeze at all it is hard to observe.  If you want a tabletop Goto refractor this will work fine.  But on the tripod it is almost unusable.   I put it aside in disgust as this took the ETX 80 and the RI2 system out of service until I could come up with a solution. Enter the gifted broken ETX 60.  The tripod on the ETX 60 is much stronger than the one that is packaged with the new ETX 80 Observer, so I swapped tripods.  That worked quite well.  The ETX 80 is now usable again.  And the light weight tripod from the 80 works fine with the much lighter 60.  I have tested the 60 on the new tripod and it works great. ETX 60 - Fixed and getting a new home on a suitable tripod  - ETX 80 - Tripod problem addressed and back into service with the RI2 system - ETX 125 - Getting a new life as part of my telescope fleet. So last night was an opportunity to test the ETX 80 on the new tripod under the stars running the GoTo system.

1-29-17 - 7:15 pm to 8:15 pm.  90% clear sky with just some light wisps running across the sky in spots.  Clouds toward the horizon.   35 degrees F and very little wind. GoTo alignment went smoothly.  The included red dot finder makes it much easier to do the initial alignment.  As a side not this is the first time I aligned it on Polaris as opposed to magnetic north.  My cell phone and another device tell me there are magnetic anomalies at my observing location. The scope picked Sirius as the first alignment star.  Came up a few degrees left of the target but the new red dot finder make it super easy to get it centered.  Second star was Rigel.  Off a bit but again easy to center.    Now to test the GoTo system. M42, the Orion Nebula - always looks good M45, the Pleiades - Looks nice at 15X and 3.4 degrees FOV Sirius  Perfect hit with the GoTo Rigel   Perfect hit with the GoTo The GoTo was hitting targets right on the money.  I went back to M42 three times from other targets and it put it right in the field of view near the center every time.

Ground light pollution near my house is awful.  Dark adapted eyes is a concept not a reality.  I use a red flashlight but there really is no point.   A new bright white LED street light is about 75 feet from my observation location.   And, of course there is a lot of sky light pollution on Long Island so even though there was no moon, dim targets can not be seen.  My Eastern sky was virtually blank and that is my best direction. I tried M50 but was not really able to see it. M1 - Likewise - could not see it Little Dumbell - NG Owl Nebula - NG This just reinforced the limitation of an 80 mm at my light polluted site as compared to the 203 mm Dob that I have been using most of the time.   This is why I am adding the RI2 imaging system to it.   This scope does fine at darker sites and I take it on vacations when we are going to darker areas.   I have no complaints but would not recommend an 80 mm to someone in a location as light polluted as mine.