[JA]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Probably silly suggestions (or ideas) would the EQ6 head mounted on a pier give a more solid load capacity?
I can't have any form of permanent set-up in a rental house but I am going to concrete a pier in the back yard (department of housing hopefully won't complain too much) and carry my mount head out to a near perfect alignment when I want to use it. Better than my current slap the tripod down in the yard and hope for the best.
In saying that I only have an EQ5 PRO but I recently rebuilt the head and changed from the standard roller bearing on the RA axis to a tapered roller bearing with the aid of an engineer friend with the equipment and skill to machine the head precisely 4mm deeper. I'm sure it's more stable and capable than it's ever been.

Hi Leo,

Nothing is ever a silly suggestion and always opens the mind to further thought - so kudos . I don't know that a more solid pier mounting would necessarily increase the rated load capacity of the mount as that is more a function of the drive capabilities of the motors and to probably a much lesser extent the rated load capacities of the bearings; however it would add more mass to the structure and make it harder to accelerate/vibrate and could conceivably improve tracking over a less rigid, dare I say flimsy, mounting. Astro tripods of the HEQ5 or EQ6 type are not typically weak, but it all helps.

In any of this, one can never say never and the proof is always in the test. I don't view it as a concern, but we'll see.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

With the camera triggers creating a harmonic vibration of sorts could you not use some type of dampening rubber/material between the bars and the camera mounts?
I'm more familiar (aware of with my sons server equipment) with harmonics in stacked hard drives but actuating multiple shutters at the same time would have a similar effect I should imagine?

It's not like the sort of forced oscillation that can be set up by a rotating/oscillating machine or by a series of hard drives spinning at 5 to 10,000RPM, starting/stopping etc... as the excitation would be "once" every 30 to say 300 seconds, depending on the exposure duration and might only be a problem if using DSLRs without mirror lockup enabled. Mirror lockup would reduce the issue significantly on DSLRs, and even then mirror induced vibration is more an issue with higher shutter speeds, since the time the mirror is operated is a higher proportion of the overall exposure time, compared with a very long astro type exposure.

I also don't see it as an issue if one were using mirrorless cameras in their electronic shutter mode or any form of astrocamera with an electronic shutter.

Originally Posted by Leo.G

And JA, can I get a job where you work?

Yeah sure.... come on down

Originally Posted by Leo.G

You have the equipment I can't even afford to dream of.

Not sure about that ..... You have a D810. That wasn't free



Best
JA