Meade 8.0" Equatorial Wedge for 8" LX 200 Series Telescopes

Comments about Meade 8" Equatorial Wedge:

This wedge fits the standard Meade field tripod. It is easy to put together and install. All the parts you need come with the wedge. It allows you to follow objects in the sky while in equatorial mode (be sure you change the setting on the Autostar II handbox to equatorial mode). The wedge includes fine adjustments for latitude and for azimuth. My wedge came with written directions that didn't match the parts supplied. However, a quick check of the Meade website produced the updated assembly manual. Overall, I am pleased with this purchase and the prompt service of B&H.

Comments about Meade 8" Equatorial Wedge:

Always consider using Equatorial Wedge when taking long exposures over 5 minutes in Astrophotograhy. No wedge is required for exposure images less than about 5 minutes. This is due because the stars rotate around the celestial pole, so if you track them with an alt-azimuth mount the stars will rotate during your exposures, causing them to become streaks. It is highly recommended mounting your scope on an equatorial wedge to do any type of astrophotography. Using a wedge allows the telescope fork arms to be oriented facing the celestial pole. Wedges come equipped with adjustments for both latitude angle or elevation, and the azimuth or east-west orientation. Once the wedge and tripod are properly aligned, the telescope need only turn on one axis to track any object in the sky. Wedges are a "must have" accessory for serious astrophotography using fork mounted telescope systems.

Comments about Meade 8" Equatorial Wedge:

I recently bought this equatorial wedge for my LX200GPS telescope by Meade and had a little trouble setting it up due to a lack of updated instructions. This has been a common complaint, and upon calling Meade, they let me know that this issue is known but they haven't gotten around to updating their manuals to have accurate instructions.

I used pictures around the internet to get an idea for how to set up the hardware. Meade said they would email me images of the product fully assembled, but I never received this email and spent about an hour tinkering with it.

It is sturdy and has a compass and a level attachable or built into the piece, which works as intended.

I would recommend this to others, but with the caveat that they should find some updated images for reference when building.

The main issue is attaching the telescope to it sometimes. It is a bit difficult to do by oneself, as the holes don't always align perfectly for the 3 screws. It is doable by yourself with a bit of elbow grease.

Comments about Meade 8" Equatorial Wedge:

I bought the Meade Equatorial Wedge for astrophotography, although I have not had the opportunity to use it for astrophotography; the wedge seems to be well built and quite stable with a Meade 8" LX200 SCT attached to it. The wedge does takes some assembling which is pretty easy, but is made much more difficult because of the poorly written instruction manual.