>>>I don't see myself using this very much so I don't want to put too much money into it.
Thanks
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Joe:
A few comments...
1. The mount is at least half the rig... If you cut corners on the mount, you will be sure not to use it much...
2. Last night my wife and I drove up to the mountains and caught about two and a half hours of DSOs before the moon came up. I had my WO66SD and my trusty 8 inch F/5 on ASGT.
That little refractor was simply amazing. M1 and M76 were easy targets. The Eskimo was right there at 12x. Andromeda was awesome. If you give this scope a chance, it will get a lot of use. I bought mine for birding but it is going to see lots of time under the stars.
3. Oh yeah, mounts... In my view, it is a mistake to use a photo mount where the scope sits a top the head camera style. These work nicely targets near the horizon but as you move towards the Zenith, the scope tries to flip over backward and more and more force is required to keep the mount from slipping. This makes pointing and tracking difficult.
In my book, the only way to go is with a balanced mount, where the alititude axis passes through the center of the scope. This balances the scope so you have essentially a single sided fork mount. Tension is not required to keep the scope in position because everything is balanced. Unistars, micro stars, the Telepod,these all work this way. With a scope as small as the WO-66SD, the eyepiece can cause imbalance but this is relatively minor in relation to the unbalance of mounting the scope camera style.
My favorites:
-- A high quality photo tripod (BOgen) with a Tilt-Pan head. The top axis is turned/flipped 90 degrees and the scope is mounted "Sidesaddle." The scope is alongside the head rather than on top of it and remains balanced even viewing at the Zenith. There is no need for gears or a lot of friction because like a DOB, the scope just naturally stays where you leave it.
I have an old Bogen 3040 with a 3047 head that I have used this way for several years with a variety of scopes ranging up to a 100mm F/6. I used this last night with the WO 66SD. Andromeda was nearly at the Zenith and the mount presented no problems.
One advantage of Photo tripods over astro tripods is that they are designed to be setup quickly. The sky moves slowly and a slow setup will not be likely to cause you to miss a shot. IN the daytime world, an extra few seconds can easily mean a missed shot.
A good photo tripod is like a good eyepiece, it costs real money. A Bogen 3046 with a 3047 head will probably cost around $400... I was able to find my older model at a swap meet for $35... Thesea the heavy duty models rated for 26 lbs of camera. (For a scope, this is optimistic, 8lbs is probably more reasonable.)
--Number two.. Not as easy to setup but a great solution with some real advantages is a small EQ mount used in the alt-az mode. Simply point the RA axis at the zenith and you now have a balanced Alt-AZ mount with the added advantage of some very nice slo-mo controls. This has the added advantage that these mounts are cheap.
I use a mount from a Meade 4500 with my ED-80 and it is totally addicting. Tracking at 250x is easy because you have the slo-mo controls, nice gear drives. The scope stays where I put it like a DOB so it is dual duty. I have used others mounts this way, the EQ-1's and EQ-2s as well as the old Polaris mounts are good. Not all mounts can reach the Zenith...
Of course I did have to lay out $20 for the mount but that included the scope and an eyepiece or two...
So: These are two somewhat unconvential solutions to the problem of mounting a small spotter on an Alt-AZ mount. Both work amazingly well. Using an EQ mount in the Alt-AZ mode is the most economical and is just so slick because of the slo-mo controls.
Both require some understanding to get the proper balance because they are not quite out of the box solutions...
The photo here is of my Pronto on the Bogen 3040 with the 3047 head. The following post will include a photo of ED-80 mounted EQ2ALT-AZ...
Best wishes, clear skies
Cheap as ever...
Jon
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