Steel Tripod

[beren]

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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[Starkler (Geoff)]

Im very interested to know more

Im looking for tripod legs for my ed80 which i use on an eq3 in alt-az mode. Something relatively light and easy to transport, quick to setup/knockdown .

Could you tell me the hieght of the tripod and whats involved in fitting the spreader? Thanks.

[asimov (John)]

I too have the same steel tripod from AOE, but bought as a unit with an F8 6" refractor & the eq5 mount.

With the 6" OTA sitting on it, it is a bit rickety. I ended up putting a counter weight on the EP end of the OTA so it rides higher in the cradle, & then lowering the whole thing on it's telescopic legs. The weakest part of the tripod is at the junction point on the telescopic legs.

With the legs at full extension, I get a 15 sec. dampening time.....rather annoying! Sinse I've lowered it it's down to 3 seconds. The next trick is to fill the legs with sand.

Asimov

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

9Kg, that's a heavy little refractor Stuart. Nice legs though Might have to think of something like that for my EQ3/4

[beren]

Paul that should be 9 pounds not kg

With the tripod fully extended the height is 109cm from ground to the base plate where the mount attachs , with the scope pointed at Zenith and balanced the diagonal is 100cm high , with my observing chair at its lowest height ,53cm, the view is comfortable but I do have to lean a little {6"1} . The spreader plate slots into three clips that are on the three spreader bars and one bolt screws into the centre. The other tripods tray and spreader bars use wingnuts etc , the steel tripod is much easier to set up .