Recently I ordered a UniStar HD Deluxe and wood surveyor tripod from Larry at Universal Astronomics.. Having had my TEC140 on a Losmandy G-11 for the past six month I wanted another mount for quick viewing sessions with faster set up and tear down. After looking at a few mounts for an OTA this size I decided I would order a UniStar HD Deluxe. My first impression of the mount while unpacking was it is larger than I had imagined. I was quite pleased with the over all construction, fit, finish, and machining of the UniStar HD Deluxe. The welds were very uniform and the hardware was of high quality. The “arm” of the mount is fabricated from 2” square stock with .25” wall. Both the altitude and azimuth controls were easy to fine tune for smooth movement and the 3” saddle plate has two guide rods to keep the jaw parallel while tightening on the dovetail. I found the tripod to be very stable as I ordered it with a Bogen spreader instead of the usual spreader with EP tray. The tripod is identical to the CST/Berger yellow surveyor tripods except the dowels are black and the legs are natural wood which gives it a nice non-industrial look. It’s easy to pick up the OTA, mount, and tripod to carry outside by just lifting up on the spreader and collapsing the legs. I was curious if the legs would have to be extended fully for the OTA to point near the zenith and have easy access to the eyepiece, but with the legs completely retracted the saddle plate was still 54” off the ground leaving the eyepiece high enough to view while seated. A “rap” test to the diagonal showed the image to stabilize in 2 seconds at 200x, much better than I was expecting for a 48” long 23 pound OTA on an alt-az mount. At just under $600 I am very satisfied with this “grab and go” mount and tripod for the TEC140. Yes, I will still use the G-11 for those long “night into morning” viewing sessions, but it nice to have a sturdy alt-az for all the other times.
Stu
Stu
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