| This aluminum eyepiece caddy and assembly guide for Meade LX200 and RCX400 telescopes serves a triple purpose. First, it keeps as many as eight 1.25" eyepieces, five 2" eyepieces, and your AutoStar computer hand control close at hand so you can find them easily in the dark. Second, it helps you level your tripod when setting it up so that your computer can find celestial objects more accurately. Third, it has nylon-clad guide posts that automatically center your telescope on your tripod to take the guesswork out of assembling your scope in the dark. The LX200 caddy works in the altazimuth mode with all 8" through 14" LX200 and LX200R scopes and 10" through 14" RCX400 scopes. It can also be used with an 8" LX200 or LX200R in the equatorial mode, using an optional LX200 8" wedge. It cannot be used equatorially with 10" and larger scopes using the Ultrawedge. Mounting a Meade LX200 on a tripod can be tricky in the dark if you are doing it by yourself, particularly with the 10" and 12" aperture scopes. (Assembling the 14" is definitely a two-person operation and two people make assembling even the 12" a lot easier and safer.) Assembling all of the RCX400 scopes is realistically a two-person job. You have to lift the scope onto the tripod and line up a hole you can’t see in the bottom of the telescope drive base with a second hole you can’t see in the top of the tripod so you can thread a large rod up through the tripod into the drive base to hold the scope in place. You hold the scope steady with one hand to keep it from falling off the tripod, slide the scope around on the tripod to get the holes lined up with your second hand, and use your third hand to thread to rod into the drive base at the same time. Easy . . . if you’re from Mars. The LX200 caddy makes the task of lining up the scope on the tripod in the dark a lot easier for earthlings . . . and safer. The LX200 caddy mounts directly to the top of the Meade tripod using three supplied flat head machine screws that register it precisely in place. It is usually left in place once installed on the tripod. Built into the caddy is a precision bubble level for leveling the tripod prior to mounting the telescope by adjusting the length of the tripod legs. The LX200 caddy has three nylon covered registration guideposts bolted to the top of the plate to simplify mounting your telescope in the normal altazimuth configuration. All you have to do is place your telescope on the caddy and slide it the rounded side of the drive base back against the guideposts. The posts guide the scope into place to line it up perfectly with the head of the tripod, allowing one-hand tightening of the threaded connecting rod through a hole in the caddy. Lining up the scope on the tripod can be done in less than 5 seconds! The caddy has eight 1.25" holes and five 2" holes to hold eyepieces. There are also four cutouts to hold your AutoStar hand control, so that a hand control holder is readily available no matter which side of the tripod you stand at to observe. The three pound caddy is made of heavy duty 2.3mm (0.09") thick aluminum plate with a powder-coated and baked-on black finish that will last for years with no worries about corrosion. The aluminum caddy is non-magnetic so that it will not affect the accuracy of the electronic compass built into the scopes.
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