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As a mate has pointed out, the Celestron tripod under it is no oil painting by comparison, but it will be OK until I can gather up some cash for a Tripier for star parties, I have a nice pier plate that I bought with it for when I get a second pier in here at home. I was saved from spending that extra right now by the tripier being backordered like just about every other bit of astro gear you can think of. I suspect when the COVID crisis is over there is going to be an absolute bonanza of near unused or totally unused astro gear on the market! You have to assume the percentage of people who buy and then never use will be similar to before, just so many people are buying stuff!
Really hoping that tomorrow night gives me an opportunity to get it out and start testing it. The cloud forecast is still looking promising and with only about 5KMH winds, so all going well I should be able to get some idea on how well it tracks both unguided and using the built in guider. Saturday night looks promising too, so I might even be able to get my camera spacing dialled in as well to be ready for the next new moon if the weather is OK. Then I just have to work out cable routing and lengths, and make up some new power cables to go from the puck to the camera, the focus motor and the heater.
The easier balancing has me looking into T series timing pulleys and belts to move the focus motor into a better position directly over the OTA. I should measure the knurling on the original coarse focus knob to see if it would work with a belt, otherwise two pulleys and a belt will be the go.
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