Frankenmount

Okay, back in the day we used to put 302's in Mavericks and small block Chevys in Vegas plus millions of other combinations for the "thrill factor 8) " So the reason why I mention this is I have a Celestron Ultima mount with the Byers gear setup. Has anyone ever heard of anybody taking the goods in one mount and installing them in another mount? The idea being taking the best attributes of a couple systems and merging them to create a killer setup for cheap. I understand there would be machine work involved.I like the Byers gears but I am less enthusiastic about the fork/wedge setup. So maybe if I could put the Byers gears on a GEM with decent load characteristis but which came with (origionally) a less than stellar drive....

Thanks for the input

Tony Aguire said:

I have a Celestron Ultima mount with the Byers gear setup. Has anyone ever heard of anybody taking the goods in one mount and installing them in another mount? The idea being taking the best attributes of a couple systems and merging them to create a killer setup for cheap. I understand there would be machine work involved.I like the Byers gears but I am less enthusiastic about the fork/wedge setup. So maybe if I could put the Byers gears on a GEM with decent load characteristis but which came with (origionally) a less than stellar drive....

Thanks for the input

Well, I'd question whether it is worth the trouble. I have this very mount, a Byers geared Ultima 8 from the early 90s. It's a very nice mount with PEC and all, and had a very acceptible PE figure for the day, a bit under 30" before Pecing. That's still OK, if you don't mind either PEC training or autoguiding, but it's not like what you'll find in an A-P or a Paramount. ;-)

In fact, it's comparable to...or actually worse than what's normal in Synta's HEQ5 and EQ6.

Byers produced some great gears over the years, but there are Byers gear sets and there are Byers gear sets. One problem, if you want to call it that, in the Celestrons (and Meades) is that the worm gear drives are only half there. The wheel, the big gear, is still a spur gear.

Again, you could do this if you wanted to devote the time and trouble to it...but...what I did was pull the U8 OTA off that fork and put it on an inexpensive CG5. I did that mainly for go-to, but I find the mount tracks as well--or maybe a wee bit better than the ol' Ultima drive base.

The performance of the other Ultima drivebases I've used has been similar to mine: good for the day, ho-hum today.

8)

With all the talk about piecing parts together to create a better scope made me think so.....Here is my "Frankenscope" Most of which was purchased here on "tha-Mart". 8v)

I don't think any two parts are from the same company. "parts is parts" LOL

Antares 8" f5 newt
GSO focuser
Celestron CI-700 mount
Sky Commander DSC
Meade giant tripod
Custom adapter plate
Parallax OTA rings
Losmandy dovetail plates
ADM guide scope rings
Orion ED-80
Starlight Xpress CCD cameras
Atik filter wheel
Televue T adapter tube
SBIG LRGB filters
Vixen flip mirror
AVA filter holder
Astro Art software
Shoestring Astronomy USB focus interface
Toshiba laptop (imager)
Geeks.com 12v Laptop power supply
Dell laptop (guider)
Home Depot tripod shelves
AGM batteries
various hardware, tape, and tiewraps

OH....I forgot...the Baader coma corrector

I just need some bolts protruding from the sides of the tube. 8v)


CCD-Freak

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