cracked corrector plate in SCT

Jeapers Anthony!!, did you have to replace optics on both scopes or just the C14?

Hi Dave,

Both scopes? It is "just" the C14 that was damaged. My obstacle was the local Celestron dealer .... he hyperinflated everything in relation to sending the unit back to Celestron which did not make it worthwhile.

In fact, it would have been much cheaper to simply pick up a new unit from the US than to pay the dealer what he was asking for this "service". My AP160 arrived about three months later and, as a result, my downtime was little (but I pulled my hair for the three months) and the exceptional optics of the AP160 made me forget rather quickly about the C14.

I still have it boxed up in anticipation of sending it to Celestron back then.

Anyway, I really feel for Alastair since I know exactly his pain! :oops:

I had my C14 for ten years and no words can describe how attached (Seanie, keep quite) I was to it!

A G11, I misread it as C11, :oops: reading too fast

Another me and Seanie moment there Dave!

Trevor, do you know what the exact model name of the scope is/was? just "Meade 200mm SCT " ?

Yep, I think so. Not sure if that was because it was sold as an OTA rather than part of a system, e.g. lx10, etc.

Right now, £1K is out of my budget. I've just got the scope
for a month, and just bought a new mount for it.
Sticking with this scope and the 80mm refractor.

Alastair - are you mounting this on a GEM?

If so, I have a Celestron C8 OTA plus rings that you can use at your leisure (and FOC of course) whilst you figure out what to do with the Meade. If your current OTA is fork mounted, I can let you have the whole C8 OTA-mount combo (motorised) since its unlikely it'll fit on your Meade forks.

I'm in the US until next Sunday AM and will be in Galway Sunday PM. I can bring it over with me.

I'd hate to see you lose some valuable early spring dark nights over a very unfortunate set of circumstances.

Cheers
Dave

Dave,

Wow, thanks.

The scope is mounted on a Celestron ADM Advanced; see:

www.flickr.com/photos/7338296@N06/419856601/

Its the scope you saw at the Galway club.

The crack in the plate is:
www.flickr.com/photos/7338296@N06/419856602/

Sorry about the quality of the photo: just a cameraphone image.
It would be good to compare the results of this with another telescope
while I figure out where to go from here - send it to be repaired
( + UHTC coatings?) or upgrade ... I think I will have some time to
think this through.

I'm not sure what our plans are for this weekend. We may be in Galway
or visiting friends out East, in which case I could pick it up from
Celbridge, if its more convenient. (I have a hard case ..)

Regards
Alastair