Purchased a while ago at a scope sale my 120mm f/5 Skywatcher has been a pretty good pick up except for one fairly big hassle the shaky aluminium tripod that carries the EQ5 mount/OTA . It really has been the bane of the scope and has limited my enjoyment of a otherwise decent scope . When moving the scope in DEC or RA you can feel the flexure in the legs and any attempt at obtaining a good polar alignment would be a waste of time because the risk of movement is to great . Ive noticed for a while a lot of synta products are coming out with steel tripods so i enquired firstly at Andrews communications , told they where orderable but where currently not in stock . Another AU store AOE had some advertised in Sky and Space two issues back for $140 , decided to go for it .
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When it arrived it was easy to set up except for the locking knobs which where a bit hard to screw into the setting holes but once in where fine . First impression it looked good and sturdy , the upper part of the legs are 1.25 inch tubes while the extension parts are slightly smaller in diameter. It may appear in the pics the legs look a little spindly but they do look solid up close . The full extension is shorter then the aluminimum legs , this may be a problem with long tubed refractors , with my short tube refractor i have to lean down a little from my chair to look through the eyepiece when the tube is pointed at zenith.....
Apart from that its comfortable to all parts of the sky , havent used the setup extensively yet but the tripod is a big big improvment over the stock tripod . No flexure , no movement and a knock test has vibrations dampen out in a second or two .....what a relief . The steel tripod has a wider footprint to...
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When setting up i found i had to add a washer to the bolt that attaches the tripod to the mount otherwise the mount would move when unlocking the RA lock and moving the tube . Another thing to the steel extension that the Altizmuth adjustment bolts ride against to adjust polar alignment is shorter on the new tripod .
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Early experiance with the new tripod has been very good and its a great and relatively cheap upgrade . Not long ago i saw on ebay a modified EQ5 mount fitted with a Meade GOTO system selling for $400 dollars , so match that up for example with the tripod and you have a nice system . Im not sure if its suitable for other mounts besides the EQ4/5 mounts nor its payload limit but my refractor weighs in about 9 kg and rides well .....
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