Awesome setups shown, the best part is the variety of everyone’s gear.
Here is my first real telescope, recently purchased from another forum member. I have attached it to a Manfrotto video head and Benro tripod. Is working well as intended, as a quick grab n go.
This is the scope i regret selling the most i had one and in a fit of madness sold it can really understand why you hold it in high regard beats anything in the 80mm class IMO
Awesome setups shown, the best part is the variety of everyone’s gear.
Here is my first real telescope, recently purchased from another forum member. I have attached it to a Manfrotto video head and Benro tripod. Is working well as intended, as a quick grab n go.
That's great. What lens foot/dovetail are you using? I didn't think the standard photographic plates were compatible with vixen dovetail bars.
Looks familiar 😀
Awesome setup. 50x for moon and 150x for Jupiter and Saturn. Next would be upgrading the mount to a Vixen Porta or similar with the slo-mo controls
Quote:
Originally Posted by awbroady
Awesome setups shown, the best part is the variety of everyone’s gear.
Here is my first real telescope, recently purchased from another forum member. I have attached it to a Manfrotto video head and Benro tripod. Is working well as intended, as a quick grab n go.
That's great. What lens foot/dovetail are you using? I didn't think the standard photographic plates were compatible with vixen dovetail bars.
Hi Adam,
There appears to be a manfrotto long plate attached to the underside of the vixen bar. The manfrotto long plate is in turn held by the manfrotto tripod head. Exercise care with loading, balancing and locking if trying this with heavy or longish loads.
JA is correct, the vixen dovetail is secured to a standard camera tripod plate. For added security I am using two 1/4-20 screws through the plate and into the dovetail(which handily had two threaded holes to make this possible).
I've now also mounted the telescope backwards on the video head which allows me to point at a full 90 degrees from the horizon. This particular model video head(501hdv) also has a counter balance spring system which loads up nicely as I reach the zenith.
Hello Arief, yes the only thing I'm missing is slow motion control. 156x with the TV barlow has allowed me to split some nice doubles.
I ask because I was trying to find a solution for myself a couple of months ago, and my dad.
I know Primaluce make their Vixen bars to be dual configuration. You just turn them upside down and they switch from Vixen to Arca-Swiss which is really handy. But good to know you can just screw an Arca-Swiss plate directly to the Vixen as well.
This week I dug out the dob which hasn’t seen the light of day for a while and had great fun comparing views of an almost full moon between the 12”, the FC60 and the FS60q
(Just for clarity, I did remember to remove the solar filter…)
Transferred my 12" Skywatcher optics into a new body. This Geoptik Nadrius structure was a kit however and I did a lot of work over the last 4 days to polish the system into a very smooth experience. Setup, tear down and movements are all silky! Holds collimation like a boss, and the open mirror box and cell means I don't need to install my 120mm fan.
Used an air brush to apply Musou Black to the mirror box and upper OTA for that 99+% light absorption. I realised though that when applied by air brush that paint is very fragile and applied 2 coats of matte varnish from a spray can. It lightened it up a bit to the eye but it is still orders of magnitude darker then the Black 2.0 which I used as a primer. The varnish will at least keep any particulates from releasing when using an air blower and provides some water resistance - which will help with dew. I may touch it up once a year or so. I still have a full bottle of each Musou Black and Black 2.0
Future things to add to it include:
Low profile focuser as some of my eyepieces and especially my coma corrector doesn't have enough in-focus despite pulling the primary as high as it will go.
Figure out a mounting solution for my iPad. A pole on the side or something as the UTA is crowded now.
Install the wireless DSC that are actually made bespoke for this structure.
......and I don't know. Maybe sand the whole thing back and stain varnish it? I do appreciate the lighter colour does make it easy to see in the dark.
While I feel I've never had an issue with the current optics - which are now 11 years old. Might switch them out for a Hubble Optics sandwich mirror.
Hi Adrian, I just moved my 12" Lightbridge optics over to the Geoptik.
I changed out the primary knobs to something smoother, also the washers are now Teflon. Painted the mirror tub matte black. And moved over all the accessories from the LB. Filter slide, sec dew heater, focuser,finder. I'm using the Geo spider, but with my LB sec holder & mirror.
Moved the handle over for left side viewing. Did you purchase the balance weight as an extra? I'll put up pictures, soon. I would love to see what other changes you make.
Hi Adrian, I just moved my 12" Lightbridge optics over to the Geoptik.
I changed out the primary knobs to something smoother, also the washers are now Teflon. Painted the mirror tub matte black. And moved over all the accessories from the LB. Filter slide, sec dew heater, focuser,finder. I'm using the Geo spider, but with my LB sec holder & mirror.
Moved the handle over for left side viewing. Did you purchase the balance weight as an extra? I'll put up pictures, soon. I would love to see what other changes you make.
In my case I'm left eye dominant so switching sides was a welcome change for me. I hadn't considered just demounting the old secondary holder and reusing it. I couldn't use my dew heater with the new holder. But, I like the new secondary spider and collimation knobs. Maybe I can change that, add my old secondary holder and dew heater. That being said I do have a 12v hair dryer to use instead.
In the case of the balance weight. I wasn't willing to spend money on that. A strip of velcro on the mirror box. 2 x 0.5kg weights duck taped up with some velcro more then does the job. Although I'm not sure if 1kg is enough anymore.
It must have been nice just to drop those LB optics in. They are GSO which are 300mm mirrors. Skywatcher mirrors are actually 305mm. Doesn't sound like much, but I had to use a table wheel grinder on the primary mirror holders to make it fit. Lucky they are just hard plastic.
Arief, so your Geo has a 10" mirror.
Did you modify the scope in anyway for the mirror?
As you would know the Geo is produced to house a 12" or the bigger kit a 16"
I have just moved all my optics (et al) from my 16 year old 12" Lightbridge over to the 12" Geo kit.
It certainly is an improvement, lighter, more rigid and much easier to use.
The Geoptik is designed for 12" f5, my mirror is 10" f6, so based on newt calculation I don't really need to adjust the tube length. I had to modify the mirror cell to align with the plop calculation for my mirror. The 13.6" OD UTA is of course oversized but I still have 100% illumination with the 1.83" secondary if I use my 7mm and 5mm Pentax EPs. Great planetary views (primary is 0.99 strehl certified and secondary is 1/30th wave), slightly bettered only by my 10" CZ mirror I had a few years ago. I will not have 100% illumination at the centre if I use my 22mm LVW or lower mag EPs, need to swap with the 2.48" secondary I have as well. Recollimation is easy and fast with a cheshire and glatter laser, but I think I will be making a new UTA for it with 11.5" OD for my next project, and I need to do something in regards to the finder placement.. I use my left eye to view through it lol
All in all, the Geoptik is a very good alternative to the ultra premium structure, especially if you already have a good set of mirrors for it.
Holds collimation like a boss, and the open mirror box and cell means I don't need to install my 120mm fan.
You must be very flexible to make that work. 
