View Single Post
  #170  
Old 24-04-2006, 04:16 PM
JohnH's Avatar
JohnH
Member # 159

JohnH is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: NSW
Posts: 1,226
Quote:
Originally Posted by [1ponders]
John you have the guidescope attachment I have been dreaming of Is that a standard sphinx attachment or is it custom made. It would be perfect from mounting a 8" or 9.25 sct with an orion ed 80 Guidescope on a Losmandy GM8 and not overburden it. Gary Beal (gbeal) and I talked about exactly the same sort of thing awhile ago, to use a guidescope to replace some of the counterweights and enable us to carry a bigger imaging scope on smaller capacity mounts. That setup on my GM8 would be my perect travel setup.

Where did you get it from ??????
Sphinx is very cool and easy to operate with the Starbook - I particularly like the align as you go capability, lets me get going quick. There is no PEC on the Sphinx yet - however the native PEC is low (I measured 8" approx at 1800m fl) and smooth so it guides out well.

The counterweight shaft mount is a standard Vixen Part - it is mostly for a camera and that is how I use it now - I have had to abandon that approach for the guidescope. It was good for balance without overloading the mount but I found two issues I could not solve the worst was the scope fouling the tripod/mount during slews the other was flexure/lack of rigidity with the spotter hanging off the ALT/AZ adjuster. I am sure it is solvable however I have now gone for over/under, I did manage to avoid going to rings for the main tube by purchasing a mini dovetail system now it looks like this:
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (IMG00026 (Large).JPG)
77.7 KB178 views
Click for full-size image (IMG00028 (Large).JPG)
107.8 KB291 views
Reply With Quote