Hi all thought I would show off my new/old mount I grabbed off Zane here last week , it arrived yesterday .
Its a very nice bit of gear , very very solid and last night on the moon discovered it tracks beautifully , and once adjusted and balenced the slip clutches allow extreemly smooth movements around the sky and slo/mo controls work excellently , I am impressed .
As you see it holds the iStar with ease and a hard ! smack on the tube dampens in about 1 second , impressive solidness . Just look at those legs !! I am a bit of a leg man myself .
I believe Celestron missed the boat , so to speak on this set up as I used it last night and its a match made in heaven .
These 2 products comlpiment each other so well , 500x on Jupiter and the image hardly moved as I focused using the FT focuser and the detail seen was impressive ! , watched the GRS move into view and needless to say today at work was tough .
I like this mount and I dont need a Losmandy G11 at over 3x the price and all I will say is , if anyone out there like me who aint rich and gets a chance to grab one of these ,,, I SAY grab IT !! .
I know this will ruffle a few feathers out there in 'mount land' , but I dont care .
The CI-700 is a great mount and it's a shame they aint made anymore . A great loss to us amature astronomers everywhere .
probably the last additions i will make to my imaging equipment for a while. gear includes;
AGO iDK 14.5 with thermal control system
Paramount MX+
Optec Gemini rotating focuser
MMOAG
Lodestar X2
FLI CFW 2-7
FLI microline 8300
Pick it up Wednesday afternoon. First light will hopefully be at the Tak party, even if it is heracy
i will look forward to seeing that, first light for me has been hindered by the inevitable persistent cloud cover, should be able to get something this week. i spent the weekend cleaning up the cables at the back and running a new tpoint model when i could see the stars.
Now the original focuser was not all that good being made of ' plastic ' ...had a bit of ' slop ' in it and a bit ' gritty ' in operation.
I didn't really like it that way, so I got in touch with Ron Newman of ' MoonLite ' Focusers. Took some photos of my sad looking Focuser and also a ' digital ' measurement of the ' ID ' of the focuser end of the OTA.
Ron went the extra mile and machined down a ' stock unit ' to my required dimensions.
I asked for a ' single ' speed unit ( the focuser is worth more than the OTA ) ... to keep the costs down but still retain an excellent Focuser.
I did all this because the optics ( 80mm f/15 ) is clean as a whistle and performs very well.....I just had to ' pimp ' it up and make it look better.
All I need now is a set of Rings for it.
I contacted Peter Tan who will make up a set to suit this Scope....they haven't arrived yet.
A 'classic ' Scope bought back to life ....
Pretty good outcome I reckon.
Col.....
Last edited by FlashDrive; 06-04-2016 at 04:40 PM.
Hi all thought I would show off my new/old mount I grabbed off Zane here last week , it arrived yesterday .
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Ahhhh ,,,, another leg maN ....
grab IT !! .
