My Mount

[solissydney]

My image shows my Astro mount made by Mr Hall in Queensland in year ??
The tripod has adjustable feet, I replaced the original post with a 100 mm one, and made up a fine-adjustment to assist in polar alignment. The gear wheels are 150mm in size and the worm has a four minute turn. In setting-up in the field I use my compass on the leg pointing south, that is good enough a polar alignment for viewing, and also for my ST-4 to happily auto guide all night if needed. The homemade controller box has 8 micro switches that enables me to adjust the tracking. Fast forward speed is TWICE THE DRIFT OF A STAR.How about that, can you beat that??

You can keep your fully electronically driven scopes, for which there will be no parts after a few years, ( as happened to my second hand 1997 Celestron 8 inch Ultima) Ha Ha.
Ken

[dpastern]

Nice looking mount.

Dave

[solissydney]

Here is an image of my complete setup at home including my 'observatory/ 'shelter' protecting me from the wind, the streetlight, and neighbour's 'in-security lights'. The setup consists of the Astro mount with a 12 inch, two layered, home made, plywood tube with a homemade finder made from a 50 mm photo copier lens inserted in a plastic tube, plus a Telrad. The 'mini substation' on wheels has a 50 amp battery that, through an inverter, supply power to the mount, ST-4 auto guider,which is attached to another home made scope similar the to the finder and uses a flip mirror with a eye piece. Finally, the Canon 5D full-frame camera, which, after having had to put up with the 3/4 frame 300D for a few years, I just had to have. I bought it secondhand for $2000.00 after the new model came on the market, being used to a Olympus OM-1, and finally, finally the Argo Navis, which I have had for several years, but only just now are being compelled to put into action because of the lousy skies over Sydney and suburbs. PreviouslyI used to star hop in order to locate objects in the sky.In the past the Argo Navis always took me to within 1 degree of my chosen goal, with some more training it will do better. All of this equipment has taking me many years to gather, and all of it, except the ST-4 was purchased secondhand and or made by myself.

[dpastern]

That's a big scope, but that mount looks beefy enough to handle it. Nice setup. The 5D was a good buy, 2 grand, well done.

Dave

[lacad01]

Hi Ken, that's a great looking setup you have:thumbsup:
Just out of interest, do you keep the pier out permanently or do you pack everything up at the end of a session?
cheers
Adam

[solissydney]

Thanks all for your interest.
I do have a permanent pier inside the shelter.

[dcalleja]

Nice looking kit

[solissydney]

In answer to "that's a big scope" by David.
The weight of tube, without the camera, is a mere 15KG.
Two layers of plywood, each 1.5 mm.