LXD55 HyperTune Sevice Review by Tom Allen

When I received my AR-6/LXD55, I was very happy. Until the drives didn't work...after only three nights of viewing! So I decided to have the mount HyperTuned. This instead of the questionable service I might get from Meade, or me trying to HyperTune it myself with my crazy schedule. Richard responded quickly to my questions before and during the rebuild. I was one of the first to be on his progress/tracking list which is very cool. When he shipped it back, it arrived only three days later. Of course, the rains arrived that weekend too. Now that Mother Nature has given me a couple of nights to use it at a dark site, I thought I'd share the results. Here we go:

First night out:
I "easy aligned" the scope quickly. I then wanted to track Jupiter before it got closer to the horizon. The GOTO didn't put it in the eyepiece's field of view(32mm) but it was in the finder scope. Once centered, it needed corrections about every five minutes to track. Searching for the Ring Nebula produced the same results. Close, but not in the 32mm eyepiece FOV. Then the clouds moved in. I wasn't too worried about the mount as I suspected my quick setup was the fault.

Second night out:
I was going to take my time setting up the mount. Then family arrived and wanted to take a look. So I ended up setting it up too quickly again. That night, I also had the same results. I had to correct to find and center anything. It still would not put it in the 32mm eyepiece FOV after the GOTO. I suspected the initial setup again. Again the clouds moved in. I still felt good, but needed for it to work better. I vowed to do a better setup next time.

Last night:
I was taking my time leveling and pointing the mount before the dark came. I setup in exactly the same location that I had the night before. So I knew it was close even without seeing Polaris. I was going to patiently wait for the dark to arrive to align. Then I backpedaled. When I saw Jupiter before it was dark, I couldn't wait. So I did a quick two star alignment in the twilight. I just accepted that it was right and pressed enter because I couldn't see any stars! Isn't that crazy? With this crazy way to align, I selected GOTO Jupiter. The mount started to slew. Jupiter was in the finder scope but not quite in the 32mm eyepiece's FOV. I didn't have to correct much to get it in the eyepiece. I synchronized it and then sat back to watch. I kept meaning to realign it correctly after the darkness came, but I was having too much fun tracking the Gas Giant. It was staying in the eyepiece with only minor corrections! But I wanted to see what would happen when I had it set up better. So I did a quick easy alignment again, only this time actually seeing the stars. I then asked it to GOTO Jupiter. This time there it was. In the eyepiece(32mm) on it's own. I resynched with smaller eyepieces to center the tracking and then started to check out the planet's details. How nice to have a tracking mount again.

Now here is the kicker.
I got hungry and went in to get something to eat. After twenty minutes or so, I came back out food in hand. I checked the eyepiece. There, just off center in the eyepiece, was Jupiter and the four moons. Now I was a happy guy. Oh and I forgot to mention, the eyepiece this happened with. Not the 32mm, but a 12.4mm. Twenty minutes plus to walk away, get food and come back. Then start viewing again by just sitting down.

I'm now curious how it's going to perform when I really take my time setting it all up! Last night made me want to write this today. I was planning to really wring it out before I wrote anything. No need. I'm very happy. I could write more, but I think I'll just close with two things:

One; if your LXD55 mount doesn't do what you think it should, don't wait, have it HyperTuned. Two; "Thanks Richard for a great job!"

ToM
HyperTuned AR-6/LXD55 in Texas!