Mewlon 300

This is my Takahashi Mewlon 300, mounted on my Astro-Physics 1200 mount.

Below are some pictures I took when I had to clean the primary mirror in July 2011. For this the tube with secondary has to be taken off so that the mirror is accessible.

After cleaning the mirror and remounting the instrument, collimation remained almost spot-on, only a small tweak to the secondary collimation was needed.

One month after cleaning, unexpectedly the CDK conversion kit arrived. Below is the Takahashi Mewlon 300 CDK conversion kit, comprising of a new baffle with correcting optics, a new back-end/eyepiece adapter and the CDK RD-CR 0.73x reducer for this system.

The tele-extender for this system is available as well, but I didn't purchase it.

Below are a few images taken while I did the conversion on 18 September 2011. Left is the system with the original baffle, center is the original baffle side-by-side to the CDK conversion baffle, at right the new baffle is installed. Conversion is straight forward: inscrew the old baffle and replace it with the new CDK baffle. Caution: do not remove the conical focuser adapter on the back when doing this swap, otherwise you wiill not be able to screw in the new baffle. After the conversion is done and the telescope assembled and mounted, remove the conical adapter an replace it with the supplied prime focus/eyepiece adapters. I used a feathertouch focuser on the conical adapter, and luckily I can continue to use it on the new prime focus adapter.

Again, after reinstalling the telescope on the AP1200, collimation remained nearly spot on and only a small tweak of the secondary mirror collimation was needed.

Here is an image of M15 made before and after the CDK conversion: