Quote:
Originally Posted by OzEclipse
Hi Chris,
Congratulations on your new Stowaway. An AP 11GTO can carry 5kg. 
Seriously, how light? Airline light, or easily throw in the boot light?
Second hand Losmandy Starlapses (discontinued) come up for sale from time to time. A Starlapse will easily handle that sort of load although it has no declination adjustment for AP. The polar finder is sold separately and for some reason costs about $700. I use one for my overseas eclipse travel. I have a home made very strong low to the ground tripod. It only weighs 400g. Very strong and rigid but needs added mass to get the centre of gravity down low. So I buy and tape 1.5L/2L water bottles to each leg once I fly to location. One of the many strainwave type mount offerings from ZWO, IOptron etc would also do the job and they have full GOTO and auto-guiding capability.
Cheers
Joe |
Hello Joe,
Thanks for your suggestions. With the not-inconsiderable unexpected drain on funds to land the Stowaway 92, I don't have much$ for a fancy mount at this stage.
I'll be packing the kit into a vehicle rather than an aircraft, but on trips, the astro equipment will be competing for space.
I did look at the Starlapse but without dec control, it's not really what I'm after. The strainwave mounts look promising in terms of being small and fairly light weight, but still require a modest outlay. I much prefer to use a hand controller (which not all of them appear to have) rather than a mobile device or laptop.
I like your idea of acquiring your tripod weights on-site! That is quite nifty.
Cheers, Chris