[ATMoB-discuss] FW: Meade Super Wedge vs. Mitty Industries Milburn or Evolution Wedge?

[gary_a_weston at us.ibm.com]

Sorry, i'm coming in very late in this dicussion. Been too busy the past 
couple of weeks to keep up on this.

I have a Meade Superwedge.. Its a long story, but i'll gladly speak in 
person/phone with you about it in more detail. Suffice to say I found my 
superwedge to be decent for general use, but it was barely adequate for 
digital astrophotography.  Mind you.. I was using the sucker on a tripod. 
That was probably half the problem right there. 

My wedge had some manufacturing defects, and it couldn't hold position 
accurately. Even tightly wound down, the thing would slide and get out of 
tune during an observing session.

I found numerous Meade Superwedge Mod articles on the web.. I compiled 
them all together and came up with my own hybrid fix/solution.  It 
basically involved having a part custom machined, replacing a lot of the 
bolts/hardware on the wedge, and having some surfaces on the wedge 
machined/flattened out so the wedge itself was more firm. It seemed to 
make a noticable difference in performance.

Not sure if I still have my doc on the mods I performed... as my laptop 
hard disk crashed right when I rebuilt my other PC (backups were there). 
So I did lose some files along the way.

I have yet to stick it on a perm pier... hopefully by this fall i'll have 
my observatory project far enough along to begin using it on a pier.

I digress... 

If you have the cash, you can't beat the Mitty/Millburn/Evolution route. 
Modding a Meade Superwedge may not be that practical cost wise however. 
Unless you have the wedge in hand already. I found for the cost of the 
mods performed plus the cost of the Superwedge (I got it used).. I could 
have invested a little bit more and got one of the others.

This was MY experience however.  I have heard of others having plenty of 
luck with their Superwedge and had it perform just fine!  I bought used on 
the cheap.. so I guess I got what I paid for :)







"Bruce Berger" <bruce at scopemaker.com>
Sent by: atmob-discuss-bounces at atmob.org
07/11/2006 11:00 PM
 
        To:     <atmob-discuss at atmob.org>
        cc:     (bcc: Gary A Weston/Westford/IBM)
        Subject:        [ATMoB-discuss]         FW: Meade Super Wedge vs. 
Mitty Industries Milburn or Evolution   Wedge?




> Hi,
> 
> Can anyone offer first hand advice on the pros and cons of the Meade 
Super
> Wedge or the Mitty Industries Evolution, which is the successor to the
> Milburn Wedge? This will be used on a permanently mounted 14" Meade
> RCX400-14".
> 
> Bruce
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