 It's funny how this is the only industry I know of where you pay
thousands of dollars for a telescope and don't expect everything to work out of the box. To be fair,
the Schmidt-Cassegrain systems they mostly sell are complex, but not any more than a piece of stereo equipment or an automobile. But time after
time, other amateurs tell of how they set up their scope for the first time and something doesn't work right.
So, when I decided to buy the 16" LightBridge, I had to wonder what wouldn't work. It's such a simple system, no electronics, no drives, no
doodads. Still, you never know. On top of that, consider the optics. I've heard many complaints about their old DS-16 mirrors being very
mediocre at best, depending on the individual mirror, of course.
Whatever the risks, the LightBridge telescopes are hard to beat for the money. Oh, wait a minute. They're built in China. No wonder the price.
This could be good or bad, depending. Since I won't be chewing on any of the parts, at least I don't have to worry about lead based paint!
Seriously, I did a little research and these scopes are made by a Taiwanese firm that has their own very similar line of scopes. The optics
seemed to be much better than the American equivalents for the price, and they have a good reputation, if the blogs out there are to be
believed. With that in mind, I bought my scope.
I must say, I was very pleasantly surprised. The scope came well packed, nothing was missing, and the parts went together with no problems.
Nothing was damaged either. Putting the scope together is a snap. There is a little bit of assembly required for the base, but despite numerous
grammatical errors in the manual, figuring out how to put it together was easy.
The scope comes in three major pieces, plus the truss tubes. You have the base, the mirror cage, and upper cage. I had first guessed it would
all fit in a compact car, but the base is way too big to fit in a trunk or squeeze through a back door. However, when I took it out the first
time, I threw the base into the back of the truck and stuck the other parts in the front and back seat of my extended cab. Despite a bad back,
I had no trouble handling the weight of each piece.
Setup is simple and can be done by one person, though it would be a little simpler with two to put the cage on the top of the trusses. One
reason I bought this scope was because my home built 16" was just too bulky. It is an f/6.4 where this one is f/4.5, much shorter! Let's just
say the transport and setup is much nicer with the LightBridge.
For first light, I set it up in my driveway and there was nothing to see through all the light pollution except Saturn. I started with the 26mm
QX eyepiece that came with it and the planet looked crisp and clear. Sharp as a tack. Then I tried a 12.5mm Ortho and it still looked sharp.
Then I put on a 2X Barlow and the magnification was around 300X and Saturn still looked sharp. I must say, the mirror is indeed a keeper.
This scope worked right out of the box, so I was pleasantly surprised. However, like I said before, there is nothing too complex about this
machine. The optics are great, but the laser finder is garbage. It functions like it is supposed to, but that is not good enough for my
purposes. First off, the laser ring is so bright it drowns out the stars you're trying to zero in on. I messed with it for a bit but didn't
find an adjustment that would dim the red ring enough to see any stars in it. I found Saturn by turning it off and just eyeing through the
little window. Given the aperture of the scope and its deep sky potential, at least a 50mm finder is needed to really find anything. I have one
from my other scope and that was the first mod I made.
With the original configuration, the altitude movement is dodgy. Especially with 300X, I could hardly keep Saturn in the field of view. Instead
of the smooth movement I expected for a Dob, it was jerky and inconsistent. At lower powers it wasn't so bad but should've been better.
Once I installed the 50mm finder and put in my heaviest eyepiece, that little clutch thing on the altitude bearing didn't even slow the tube
from dropping like a rock. So my second mod was to buy some large band clamps, string a few together, wrap them with duct tape, then clamp an
exercise weight to the bottom of the mirror assembly. This gave me just the right amount of balance, and as a bonus, seemed to smooth the
altitude movement out. The only problem is that at certain positions, like really low and really high, the altitude movement could still be
better, but it works for me. The base moves smooth, especially with that large roller bearing sandwiched between the baseboard and the rocker
box.
Alignment of the mirrors is not hard at all. If you have a good laser collimator with the diagonal in it, you can tweak the alignment from the
back without constantly going back and forth to the eyepiece. Unfortunately, my Meade laser collimator isn't straight and as I've said in
another review on it, there are adjustments to center it which I still haven't got exactly right. Because of that, I had to do the alignment
the old fashioned way and for first light, I just eyeballed it and the crisp images attest to how close I got. When I took it out in the field,
I did a more precise alignment with just a pinhole eyepiece instead of the laser, but didn't notice a difference in the already excellent
images.
The focuser is excellent, though it has a little slop in the draw tubes. There is a friction screw that I had to adjust to get the focusing
knob to work properly. Now the focuser is silky smooth and I really like the two speed knobs. I'm not really crazy about the position of the
focuser on the cage. It is angled up so that you have to arch your body over the trusses to look. This is the perfect position for looking at
low to moderate height objects, but when looking straight up or at a high angle, you need a step stool to get to the eyepiece. I'm 6'2" and I
still need a step up when looking at a high angle. The finder is positioned on the far side of the focuser so you have to arch your head over
the tube to find stuff. However, the scope is so close to the ground that after a little learning curve, I got used to it and must say it is
not a problem. If you are less than six feet tall though, you may have a more awkward time using the scope.
The views of the sky are typical for such a short focal ratio. There is significant coma at the edges, especially at low powers. Plus, the QX
eyepiece has natural coma at the edges, which is typical for the Erfle type 70 degree designs. However, I didn't mind the coma at all. Some
people will, and if you want to fork out the bucks for a Paracorr or some other high-end coma correcting eyepiece, the more power to you. Just
keep in mind that it adds more elements in the light path that can dim the really faint objects.
The first field test went very well. Despite what looked like a lousy night, we had a three hour window between clouds and wind. During that
time, I spotted several Herschels and looked at a few of the "tourist" objects for some visitors. The Orion nebula looked tack sharp and there
was no blur between the stars of the trapezium. The nebula was a little washed out but that was because of the transparency in the sky and not
the scope. The Pleades showed lots of nebulosity around the brighter stars. Saturn, once again, looked spectacular from 57X up to 300X. The
Herschels I looked at were galaxies and despite the less than ideal conditions, the scope performed well. Sweeping was a lot of fun despite the
coma. For normal observing, I used an Orion Q-70 32mm eyepiece and I just felt lost in the stars, even though the oversized exit pupil wastes
light. I sure didn't notice!
The scope came with a software CD. I guess it's for those that want to add GOTO or electronic setting circles. The CD wouldn't install properly
and I wasn't able to load the star database on the hard drive. The Moon program that came with it crashes when you try to load it and never
even tried to load the Messier program since I've been there, done that with the Messiers. From what I saw of the main program (which loads
despite having the guide stars only on the CD), it doesn't hold a candle to my Megastar software. I didn't get the scope for any electronic or
automatic capabilities, so I just deleted the programs off my computer and stashed the disc. Not even worth calling Meade over it.
Overall, despite a few little things, I am quite happy with this scope. It is the first brand new commercial telescope I've bought since 1967
(a Sears refractor), and I'm quite impressed. The 16" LightBridge is truly a light bucket and if you like to scan the skies and observe in a
low-tech fashion, this scope can't be beat. Well worth the price. Highly recommended.
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