Saddle and dovetail plate confusion

[naskies (Dave)]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping that someone well acquainted with the various types of saddles/mounting plates could help a newbie out a bit.

I've recently acquired an NEQ6 mount, Orion Awesome Autoguider package, Orion Narrow Side-by-Side Plate, and an "Adapter 1/4"-20 for Dovetail Mount" for my digital SLR. The idea behind this set up was to have a nice wide-field astrophotography set up (full-frame SLR with lens ranging from 14 mm to 200 mm) that I could then add a refractor to later.

All of the pieces arrived from Bintel this week but they don't fit There are two problems:

1. The Orion Narrow Side-by-Side plate can't attached to the NEQ6 - it's far too narrow (only about half the width of the NEQ6 saddle!). My understanding is that the Orion side-by-side plate is a "Vixen" mount? What type of mount do I have on my (white) NEQ6? Would something like the following work?

http://www.telescope.com/Orion-Wide-...ate/p/7953.uts

2. The Orion Awesome Autoguider package comes with two mounting rings and a Vixen-style dovetail plate for piggyback mounting on a larger telescope. The dovetail will fit in my side-by-side plate, but not with the mounting rings attached (because the bolts protrude below the bottom of the dovetail plate - see the main pic at the link below). Any suggestions for how to solve this?

http://www.telescope.com/Orion-Aweso...ge/p/24770.uts

I'm rather confused by the various mounting plates... especially when the product specs on websites rarely say what they support!

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[casstony]

Hi Dave, there are 2 basic sizes of dovetail and saddle, the wider losmandy or D style, and the narrower Vixen style.

I thought the NEQ6 mounts came with two saddles? If it did you could change over to the vixen sized saddle by unscrewing the 3 grub screws just below the saddle which is currently on the mount. You can see how the saddle is removed from a similar HEQ5 at this link (7th and 8th pictures on the page): http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-d1.htm

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

I seem to remember having similar issues when I got my EQ 6 and tried to tandem mount two scopes- I solved it by getting a side by side bar kit from telescopes-astronomy in Adelaide and fitting a couple of the Bintel dove tail clamps. The pictures show these.
The set up is slightly modified in the second picture- the bottom bar is usually parallel to the long axis of the plate. I turned it around to make it easier to polar align on a CGEM mount.
Good luck
Graham

[gbeal]

If your NEQ6 is anything like mine, it will have shipped with both saddles. Mine had the Losmandy style (the wider of the two) already in place, and the Vixen style was stashed away in the poly packaging.
Had a good look?
Gary

[naskies (Dave)]

A-ha! I appear to be missing the Vixen-style saddle for my NEQ6 - I checked very, very thoroughly the first time around (I'm a veteran of Ikea furniture...) and just double-checked again.

I know that the folks at Bintel opened up the boxes to jam in some of the other bits to save on my shipping costs... I'll give them a call to see whether someone forgot to put it back in?!

Thanks!

[bartman (Bart)]

Hi Dave, for what its worth my EQ6 only came with a narrow ( Vixen i believe about 45mm wide) style head too . Didn't know it was meant to be shipped with both sizes.......
See if they can/will swap it for the right size...
Bartman

[casstony]

Originally Posted by bartman

Hi Dave, for what its worth my EQ6 only came with a narrow ( Vixen i believe about 45mm wide) style head Bartman

AFAIK, the older EQ6 was supplied with the vixen saddle only, while the newer NEQ6 is supplied with both.

[BPO]

For owners of the older (pre N) EQ6 mounts, the ADM saddles and plates are excellent drop in replacements.

The EQ6 Pros I own all have the ADM dual saddle (plus ADM plates) and I've never looked back. IMO they are a great cost-effective solution; between the stock Synta Vixen saddles (a little bit lacking) and the real high end stuff such as that from the likes of Robin Casady (expensive overkill for an EQ6).