LX10 Notes

The LX10 that I use is only slightly modified. I use the Meade standard adjustable field tripod, I added the Meade declination motor, I replaced the standard and limited 6x30 finder with the 8x50 finder, I put a Meade piggyback adapter on the back position, and I added the Meade counterweights (I should have gone with the Losmandy 2D setup). Other than that, the only modifications I made above what you could get from Meade is shown below.

• Image: An image of the LX10 telescope.
• Manual: The manual for the LX10 telescope.
• Adjustable Tracking Rate:

  My LX10's RA tracking rate changes as temperature changes. Fortunately, there is a potentiometer on a circuit board that changes the motor's tracking rate. The circuit board resides behind the metal cover on the LX10's drive base, where the cover is indicated as number 4 in the figure below.

  

  Once you remove the cover, the potentiometer itself is shown in the figure below (Figure 8 of the hardcopy version of the LX10 manual). Item 2 in the figures is the "Plug for drive motor-control panel connection" and the potentiometer is just below and to the right of this plug (as shown in the figure). Taking the cover plate on and off all the time is painful (4 Allen-head screws), especially in the dark, so I decided I needed to make it easier to get to. I removed the 1K potentiometer from the circuit board (simply unsolder it) and replaced it with a much larger one that I then mounted in the 9V battery compartment (with some wires leading from where the other potentiometer was on the circuit board to the new mounting point). It is now very easy to change the tracking rate in the middle of the night as things cool down.

  

• Latitude Adjuster:

  I added a latitude adjuster to make polar alignment much easier than tweaking the tripod leg's height. The one I use is a Scopetronix unit called a Deluxe Latitude Adjuster and it worked fine to begin with, but seems to have become temperamental with a lot of use and acts like it's partially stripped out sometimes. Below are images of the unit by itself and installed.

  

• Adding Autoguiding Capability:

  I wanted to be able to use my STV to guide exposures for me but the LX10 doesn't come with a standard autoguiding port. It's easy enough to change that though, by contacting Norbert Tackman. He builds converter cables for all sorts of telescopes that have this problem and he whipped up one for me that works great. The converter cable ends up going into the hand controller port so that both the autoguider and the hand controller cannot be used at the same time. This has not yet been a problem. Norbert says that he can modify the hand controller so that both can be used at the same time.

  Note that a relay box (from SBIG or Meade) is necessary for the STV to work. A "standard" autoguiding cable (telephone jack style) goes from the STV (and probably most other autoguiders) to the relay box and then Norbert's custom cable goes between the relay box and the LX10's hand controller port.

  STV users should note that a jumper or two within the STV need to be changed in order to autoguide using a relay box. I forget which jumper or jumpers need to be changed but it's pretty clear what has to be done in the STV's manual.