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HorizontTripod is now a great altaz mount


RobertI

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I recently reviewed the Horizon 8115 tripod and concluded that it was a great mount for compact lightweight scopes but, like most camera tripods, was difficult to use closer to the zenith requiring tightening and loosening of the altitude tenison bolt in order to find and fix on an object.

Inspired by an article on the Home Built Astronomy Projects website I have now turned this tripod into a very capable grab and go altaz mount with a relatively simple mod. This basically involved bolting one end of a Vixen Dovetail to the tripod head and the other end to the scope. A small hole needed drilling in the dovetail to locate tripod head's 'anti-swivel' pin. Hopefully the pics are self-explanatory.

The mount can now be tilted to the zenith without the need to tighten the altitude tension bolts at all. By some fluke the centre of gravity of the scope assembly must be exactly in line with the altitude axis.

The mount is now a joy to use, easy to locate and view objects at all positions of the sky and very solid.

Hope it's of interest.

Rob

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I like it Robert, its a good idea as you should be able to crank up the center post and still keep reasonable balance, well it might lean to the left a touch?  :)

The Horizon tripod is a great bit of kit, I use mine with my big bins sometimes and it seems to take the weight of these ok . 

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  • 7 months later...

Hi this is my take on your idea, thanks for posting.

Decided to use a longer dovetail with a 2.1kg counterweight.

Works so well now I don't need to use the alt locking clutch.

Looks a bit like a sci-fi RTA but I like it.

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Very nice improvement moriniboy. I had wondered whether something like this might be possible so I'm glad you've done it. I guess you could have a second lightweight scope instead of a counterweight on the other side? I must say your solution looks better engineered than mine!

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