has anyone made a adapter plate for a pier - not reusing the one off the mount
Yeah, you can buy an offcut from a round aluminium bar. Dirt cheap. . I got a 200mm diameter by 100mm thick. Drilled the center and tapped to bolt the head and 3 holes at 120 degrees for the levelling on the pier.
I am pleased to announce that I am now the very proud owner of an EQ8 which has seen first light this weekend. Much fun was had by all. I want to thank all of the contributers to this forum for the excellent advice and tips, particularly with the balance issue which I found very soon during the process of setting up the mount. My day (night) was saved with the post and photo by Peter on 26 June which showed the additional bar attached to the mounting points for the optional polar scope.
My answer to the balance issue was to to use some spare Losmandy "C" style dovetail parts that I had lurking about in my spare bits and pieces (see attached photos). Only needed some drilling, spare hex bolts and a couple of washers and all was fine. And yes - that is a spare Losmandy 7 lb weight that I am using. The supplied 10Kg weight was just a little too heavy for my set up.
It is a times like this that one appreciates the value of these forums and the exchange of tips and ideas.
Rodney,
Looks like you found a good work around solution....
I suppose if this is a common problem it won't be long before some 3rd party supplier comes up with an elegant (but expensive!) fix.
Hmmm, maybe a business opportunity perhaps? Surprising that JMI hasn't got one already! Actually thinking about it, if I look at the original purchase prices of the long C style bar, short C style bar and C style mount head that I am using, the $ would be adding up quite considerably.
I am thinking about ordering an EQ8 mount and I want to select as a guide camera using ASCOM pulse guiding. The proposed setup is a camera feeding data to PHD through the 'telescope" setting, and PHD sending its data to EQASCOM which will modify its PEC corrections to the EQ8 mount. I specifically want to avoid the use of the ST-4 system directly to the mount as this will result in two sets of instruction going to the mount one being PEC adjusted instructions from EQASCOM (EQMOD) and the other being the ST-4 auto guide instructions.
Can anyone suggest the camera best suited to this job and what cabling would be necessary?
Thanks in anticipation,
Frank
Frank,
Whether or not you use ASCOM pulse or ST-4 direct you will always have separate guide commands issued to the mount.....
ASCOM pulse pre-supposes you will be using EQMod rather than the Synscan handcontroller...
I use EQMod but also use ST-4/ PHD guiding on a NEQ6pro with my Lodestar camera.
No issues, no drama.....
Ken,
Thanks for the response. I have been guided by the EQASCOM & AutoGuiding pdf published by EQMOD. The very last paragraph of which reads "For those using the EQMOD EASCOM driver the good news is that the Pulse Guiding implementation has been carefully designed to work alongside PEC. I would not however advise the use of PEC with ST-4 guiding for the Synta mounts."
Because of this I decided to use pulse guiding only with connection from the computer to the mount via Shoestring USB2-EQ5 cable.
Is the Lodestar capable of USB input/output from camera to computer and then to mount via EQMOD or is it ST-4 only via the auto guide port?
Cheers,
Frank
Ken,
Yes, thanks for the information. I was getting confused because the Lodestar website says the USB port as "input" which made me think it was for power supply only. I shot off an r-mail to them last night and they informed me that the USB port is bi-directional and so the USB and ST-4 can be used as two different guiding systems. I see it now.
Just picked up my new EQ8 mount yesterday . My thanks go to Peter at AstroPete's for making my long time dream of getting one of these mounts come true . Now to wait for the clouds to clear so I can have a play.
Also thanks to the early adopters here in IIS for their constant feedback and updates on events and the performance of this mount.
Just picked up my new EQ8 mount yesterday . My thanks go to Peter at AstroPete's for making my long time dream of getting one of these mounts come true . Now to wait for the clouds to clear so I can have a play.
Also thanks to the early adopters here in IIS for their constant feedback and updates on events and the performance of this mount.
Just picked up my new EQ8 mount yesterday . My thanks go to Peter at AstroPete's for making my long time dream of getting one of these mounts come true . Now to wait for the clouds to clear so I can have a play.
You will love this mount. I have one too! BTW, you paid too much for that mount. FYI, the Maidenwell Observatory is an agent for SW, Bresser and IOptron equipment.
You will love this mount. I have one too! BTW, you paid too much for that mount. FYI, the Maidenwell Observatory is an agent for SW, Bresser and IOptron equipment.
I am not so sure about that as you assume I paid RRP for it and you do not know any other considerations in the purchase price/agreement . But that's between myself and Peter.
Good to know Maidenwell Observatory is an agent as it is good to have options when shopping, however Peter is a top notch bloke and looks after his customers so he has my dedicated business as my first point of contact for all things astronomy.
Yep got out last weekend and wow these things are great to use. the guiding graph is soooooo smooth.
Very happy camper indeed. I do have a small concern over the declination axis that I am exploring as it feels a bit loose. When I spoke with the Australian Distributor they eluded to a known problem but am awaiting some more details. I don't want to speculate till I have all the information at hand.
As an aside it didn't seem to impact the final product when imaging so it may be a nothing issue in the end.
Yep got out last weekend and wow these things are great to use. the guiding graph is soooooo smooth.
Very happy camper indeed. I do have a small concern over the declination axis that I am exploring as it feels a bit loose. When I spoke with the Australian Distributor they eluded to a known problem but am awaiting some more details. I don't want to speculate till I have all the information at hand.
As an aside it didn't seem to impact the final product when imaging so it may be a nothing issue in the end.
yep
. My thanks go to Peter at 
the guiding graph is soooooo smooth.
