EQ6 polar finder.. and new prices...

[bojan]

Hi,
Anyone has a spare polar finder reticle for Southern hemisphere only?
The one I have is cluttered with unnecessary marks (Big dipper, Cassiopeia, Polaris Borealis etc... very confusing and preventing me to find Octans quickly and un-mistakeably...).

And I just became aware of that huge price reduction for EQ6 Pro...
Sadly I bought EQ6 (black) last month for THAT price.. It seems it does not pay off to buy anything these days, only waiting (and never buying anything) is saving you money.. Or, how low they can go? How much we are REALLY ripped off, every day?

[leonsfaaa (Leon)]

Hi bojan,
I am actualy at the northern hemisphere (USA) and plan to travel to the southern hemisphere (Brazil) and also have a EQ6, where have you got your southern reticle? do they sell separately? I called Orion and they technical support did not have any clue.

[bojan]

Leon,
My reticle came with mount and it is a standard one, delivered with new polar finders, it seems. That means, it has both northern and southern marks.. I am pretty sure that if you purchase new Orion finder, it will have that reticle. If not, you are still left with Octans asterism - it is easy to spot it in the finder, once you found it and get used to it. In the beginning, and when I go out of the city, I use compass (on the stick, to keep it away from mount's steel parts) for rough orientation. Then, it is either drift alignment or visual with reticle, depending on what I want to do. Also, my mount has bubble level (original one was not very sensitive so I glued better one on top of old one), and that helps a lot.
Southern marks are characteristic polygon around Sigma Octans..
Right now, I am used to those "unnecessary" marks for northern hemisphere :-).. I guess they can be useful in case of travel.
Yes, dealers have no clue these days (I think they do not care much). Even well respected ones are not what they used to be or what they should be...

[Stephen65]

I've never heard of a Southern Hemisphere only reticule for the EQ6. I thought all EQ6's came with the reticule marked for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

[bojan]

There used to be "southern" finder (EQ5, EQ6 finders are the same thing), I saw pic of it on EQ6 Yahoo group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EQ6/ph...04342/pic/list