Thomas Gaunt Equatorial Mount and Pier c1870

[Kunama]

One for enthusiasts in Ye Olde Telescope Equipment:

Due to my retirement and recent move to much smaller premises with no room for an observatory and little room for storage I have decided to reduce my holdings of astro gear,
so this beautiful Robert Ellery designed and Thomas Gaunt of Melbourne built equatorial mount and pier is open for offers.

The mount is Australia's first commercially produced equatorial mount made of Brass, Bronze and cast iron and sits atop a brass footed cast iron pier.

Robert Ellery was Astronomer to the Governor of Victoria and Thomas Gaunt an Optician in Melbourne.

The mount was brought back to life by me in 2012. The recommissioning process is documented here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=99094&highlight=gaunt

Please PM me if interested....

This is a pickup item from Canberra with possibility to deliver to Sydney at a reasonable rate.
Istar scope pictured is not included in the offer.

Cheers,
Matt

[Astromelb]

Dear I In Ser's,

This Gaunt Eq was purchased from myself by Lars Hansen roughly about 4 years odd ago. He sold it to "Kunama" as I understand it.

The refurb project looks quite capable.

The unit was housed in my obsy here in Melbourne for about 20 years, the pier is very solid - much more solid than you will get these days unless you go for a robotic pier mounted GoTo - and the mount is also very strong.

If anyone has any enquiries I am quite happy to directly support their enquiries into this unit, and thereby support "Kunama" in his sales process, as this is the correct and gentlemanly thing to do :)

This Eq served me very capably with an 8 inch fluorite triplet that I had at the time and was a capable performer.

Rgds,
Cris.
Astromelb.

[Kunama]

Thanks Cris.
With regard to the capacity, I had about 40Kgs on this mount and the motions were still silky smooth.
It certainly deserves to be in use rather than as a paperweight in my office.

Edit:
For any Victorians interested, I may be able to meet in Corryong area.

[Nikolas]

Just to clarify, this is a very old mount and beautiful, This is where my lack of knowledge is and probably a stupid question, but can you track with this setup? /is it a mechanical type tracker???

[Kunama]

This does not have geared tracking It may have been removed sometime in the past 135 years.

[Julian]

HI Matt

I would be interested in the mount because of our family relationship
could you please contact me regarding what you think would be the value regards Julian

[Kunama]

PM sent Julian ...

[Julian]

PM sent re phone no

[Kunama]

Thanks for the enquiries everyone, the mount has been sold.