With a bit of experimenting, I was able to transform my 1985 LX3 2080 from a lump of coal to a diamond.

When I got this scope about two years ago, the first thing I had to do was have the secondary recoated. It had the Multi-Coated Silver Optics Group (MCSOG), and the silver on the secondary was badly tarnished. When I had it out of the scope, I noticed that the mounting plate was way off-center of the mirror. I went ahead and left it that way because it was suggested that Meade had done it to correct for an alignment problem with the optical axis. Well, the high powered views sucked. Bright sars looked like the cover photo of Harold Richard Suiter's Star Testing Astronomical Telescopes book. Jupiter never showed much detail other than the color variations of the bands. I tried rotating the secondary, but that didn't help. Most of my observing with this scope was on DSO's with a focal reducer.

Two months ago I decided to try centering the secondary to see if that would help any. Sure enough, the view improved. But still no diffraction pattern around the stars.

I was digging through one of my tool boxes and found a thrust bearing. It was one of those light bulb turning on moments! The sun was actually shining that day, so I taped over all the ball bearings but one, and sat it on top of the brick wall in my back yard. I have a small back yard and was happy that I was able to focus on the bearing from only 50' away. And there was the nasty diffraction pattern! I had already tried rotating the secondary after I centered it on the mounting plate, so this time I thought I would try the rotating the corrector. I was rotating a couple degrees at a time and recollimating. When I got to about 50 degrees away from the factory alignment I stared too get a more round diffraction pattern around the sun's reflection! I kept rotating and collimating until it started getting worse, then I started back the other way. After I got back to where I believed the best spot was I removed the corrector retaining ring to add the new alignment mark on the corrector. I noticed something strange... there was a black mark on the edge of the corrector, exactly centered with the factory alignment mark on the ota and the new mark I just added. Things that make you go hmmm!

I had to wait a couple of days for a break in the storms before I could try and dial in the collimation with Polaris, but the El Niño jet stream wouldn't let me use much magnification. And I'm still waiting for a night with good seeing to tweak the collimation. But on the bright side, I now have an SCT that provides views of round stars with a diffraction pattern around them! I spent the time traveling around Orion switching out my Televue Plossl's and ended the viewing session with a Meade 26mm Super Plossl. Even with the Meade eyepiece, Rigel B was easy to see, and I was able to see A-F stars in the trapezium. Needless to say, I had a big smile on my face...even after the clouds rolled in!

I woke up early Tuesday morning to observe Jupiter but the seeing was only 2/5. It looked like it did on a night of excellent seeing before I did any work on the scope. A dull planet with a couple bands around it. :-( I tried again Wednesday morning and the seeing was 3/5, but there were thin clouds covering the sky. I went a head and set up the scope anyway, hoping for Jupiter to peak through a clearing, but it didn't. BUT, even through the clouds, I was able to easily see the GRS, and noticeable detail in the bands and along their edges!!! And last night I checked out the moon while it was getting dark. I have never seen so much detail in the moon as I did last night!!! Where did those tiny craters come from, and the ridges in the larger craters?

In case you can't tell, I really like this Halley's comet era scope now!!!