Posts Made By: David McGough

Lawrence,

This is an old Nikon scope and should be a very sharp telescope to see the Moon, Saturn, etc with. Won't show a lot of nebula well, but definitely worth using. If it is mint condition or at least very good, might be fairly collectable as well.

Dave

Carhartt artic weight insulated work overalls work well for me, they are better than a parka in that the legs are covered and no gaps around the waist to let cold air in. They do look real ugly though!

Dave

Don,

Imaging is one of the toughest things you can demand of a mount, and even though the mount is go-to, and even if it were good enough that there were not jumps and erratic motion, both of which you have, the alignment to the pole must be perfect, drifted in over the course of an hour or so to avoid field rotation. These smallish cheap overseas made mounts do not have the precision to get reliably good results, their main function is to hold the OTA off the telescope dealer's floor and look good with a decent set of "features" to lure the comparison shopper. If imaging is your passion get at least a Losmandy. Even the Vixen GPs had a single screw attaching the motor assembly that could slip and cause slop. For the equipment you are running, a GM 8 ought to work for shorter exposures, and the go-to is not necessary nor can it replace a good drift alignment.

Hi Ivan,

The 8" diameter 48" tall pier is very stable and portable. The center column is only about 41" long, and I store the legs and tensioning rods inside. The base the legs slide on rides in a separate bag.

The down side is assembly requires plopping the base down, slipping the three legs onto it. Getting the center column stacked on that, then inserting and tightening the tensioning rods to hold it all together. There is no ability to level other than blocks of 2x4 under a foot or two, and while not essential to level, I like to be within the latitude range without having to move the adjusting bar on my AP900 as that is a pain to do in the dark.

Most of the pier is aluminum, except the legs are steel, and tensioning rods are stainless. It is a relatively inexpensive very stable solution but lacking in creature comforts and is kindof akin to setting up a truss dob, then putting the mount and scope on top!

Dave

Steve,

A couple of factors that play into this are that the Earth's orbit is not circular, and the speed of motion around the Sun changes. The true day from a rotation of Earth standpoint is the Siderial day. The solar day is a bit longer as the Earth has moved in its orbit around the sun, and hence needs to rotate more than 1 rev on its axis to bring the sun back overhead. For calendar purposes, we've adopted the mean solar day, which is the mean value over the course of a year. The amount more that it needs to rotate varies, it is larger near perihelion in January. We see these variations as shifts in the sunrise and sunset times relative to the mean solar day.

Secondly, from anyone off of the equator, the Sun's movement in declination during each day causes a bit of the discrepancy as well, as it moves northward, it will set a bit later in the northern hemisphere. The fastest rate of declination chage is at the equinoxes.

Hope that helps.

Dave

Standard 58mm camera lens caps fit perfetly. BH Photo or just about any camera store should be able to get you a couple.

David,

Give Hastings Irrigation Pipe a try:

www.hipco-ne.com/scope.htm

Other than a tube, if you need adapters for the lends cell or focuser made, try Precise Parts from the sponsor page.

Dave

There should be a small recessed set screw on the part the focuser body screws into, you'd need to make sure that is all the way removed.

David Simons said:

Hi Folks,

I have been trying to replace the focuser on my vintage EDT smooth paint Traveller without much succes. I have tried rubber strap wrenches to unscrew it.

Any success stories out there ?

Thanks !

Mark,

Super glue isn't the correct product, but you aren't far off the answer. Use LocTite thread locker, one tiny drop on the barrel threads where it screws into the body and then quickly tighten odwn and let dry, it will never come unscrewed again.

Dave

That's good to know. The S&T review in the August issue says "The 7-inch diameter, glossy aluminum tube has nicely machined front and rear cell castings with a satin-black finish." That implied an all metal tube assembly.

Dave