New mount

[JY]

Hi,

Just back from 4 weeks overseas : we had very clear and dark skies in South France ... but no telescope !
Anyway, even with binoculars, the views were fantastic !

Since it has been raining "non stop" for weeks/months (?), I have done some shopping on astromart : a mount AP600E QMD.

It's a very accurate mount that I plan to use on trips overseas with a Canon camera / teleobjective for a start, to take wide field images of the Milky Way.

If it works well, plans are for a Takahashi Sky90 at a later date for wide field imaging.

Now, I need to tour the machine shops in Singapore to order a custom made aluminium portable mini pier (unless someone has one for sale ?).

Images of the mount at :
http://www.geocities.com/jybeninger/ast ... ap600e.jpg

Cheers

Jean-Yves

[kingkong]

Hi Jean-Yves.
Would you mind to share your shop drawing for the mini pier, if/when you have one? Need to build one for my impending LXD75. Thanks.

[JY]

I like this one :
http://www.astromart.com/classifieds/de ... _id=291473

Probably around 18" - 20" high in aluminium ... I'll let you know if I go ahead with it ...

Cheers

Jean-ves

[ariefm71]

Hi JY, it will most probably cheaper to order from US directly. I got mine ordered from Astrosky ( http://www.astrosky.homestead.com/Astrosky.html ) for my SP mount, it's 32" tall. See discussion here http://www.singastro.org/viewtopic.php?t=1223

Arief

ps: Jim Grigar is a very helpful guy, he can customize the pier for you. He made an adapter to allow me to use the pier with my Unistar alt-az mount without extra charge!

[JY]

Hi Arief,

Thanks for the link, I'll go and have a look.
How heavy is the mount ?
When you break it down into components, do they fit into a suitcase ?

Cheers

Jean-Yves

[ariefm71]

For my pier, the weight is around 10kg. Only the legs can be removed, so suitcase is not possible (unless you have a 33" long suitcase). I'll post some pics later.

Arief

[ariefm71]

here's the pic.