I have a Meade Starfinder equatorial mount for sale. It was designed for 6/8/10 inch scopes. I have been using it with my 10" Newtonian until I purchased an EQ8 mount.
It comes with the Magellan II computer system, dual axis drive, AC adapter and a 10lb (4.3kg) weight.
It has been modified from original to improve performance with the following:
-Longer stainless steel declination axis (original was unprotected mild steel of sorts)
-Brass bushes on declination axis (original nylon(?) bushes were too sloppy)
-Redesigned tangent arm on declination axis with better clamping arrangement
-The last two gears in the RA drive are brass (instead of the original plastic)
-Plus a couple of other minor additions.
There are a few additional holes drilled in the cradle and in the RA drive box for some things I've been trying but these do not impact performance at all.
I'm asking $400. Pickup preferred - shipping will be additional (mount weighs about 23kg all up).
This range of mount had a semi-goto system. You have to push the scope to roughly where the object should be and then the computer system took over from there. I never really got it to work but I never really tried either i.e. I didn't polar align the RA properly or adjust any of the settings.
Hi,
Was wondering if you can use the mount with EQMOD and Stellarium?
Is everything in good working order ?
I am looking for a strong mount but have no experience with Meade products. What do you use for autoguiding ?
Thanks for your time.
