nordwald

Yeah, that’s much better. With a navigational device you always risk never learning your way around. There are so few occasions I can use my telescope though, mostly under light polluted skies, so I try to make the most of it. Clear skies to you as well

So I finally found the time to build my equatorial platform following the excellent plans and advice here Using the garden table as a workbench like a pro 😆 For the pivot I found this ball bearing on amazon, so I gave it a shot. Works quite nicely and it might be possible to adjust the latitude angle of the platform a tiny bit by adjusting the upper screw. I REALLY like the playmobil idea of rojay to check the angle of the whole setup, however I couldn't manage to get as nice a photo as he did. So I did it the other way round, put the camera on the platform, aimed it at a ruler and did a long exposure while tilting the platform. Which produced this funny image: Using the value at the rotation center and the distance of the pivot to the ruler and from the ground and doing some arctan online math, I get this: Which by mere coincidence is EXACTLY the latitude I am at Added some adjustable feet and a spirit level, got a new compass and here we go, working quite nicely. This improved the Dobson experience soooo much for me, so thanks everybody here again, I couldn't have done it without these resources here. Now, I do have one more gimmick for my setup, that makes Star Gazing for me absolutely perfect, especially in addition to the EQ platform: the Celestron StarSense Explorer. It's a bit offtopic but I will quickly mention it, just in case you never heard of it, because it really complements the EQ platform perfectly and I am absolutely loving it. It's basically a Push-To expansion that is using a special mirror bracket for a smartphone and an app that does plate solving of the stars the cam sees. The weird thing is you have to buy a Celestron telescope (!) that comes with it, cause it is not available separately. With some leftover aluminium I built a custom attachament for the shoe where the finder of the dobson used to be. You have to adjust it once, so that the Phone Camera points in the same direction as the telescope and then you just choose the Space Object from a library, follow the directions on the Phone and *BAM*, it's right in your telescopes view - and thanks to the EQ platform, it stays there I still can't believe how much easier and better it is now to look at the night sky... thanks again to everyone! Michael

Thanks a lot, it’s really amazing how you keep helping people in here after so much time, I wonder how many star gazers have build their platform based on your instructions. I will post pics of mine once I (hopefully) finish it. One more thing I am wondering about: the southern pivot in the back - do you think the pivot should ideally be as close as possible to the bottom board, the top board or right in the middle between them? Cause that will change the exact rotation axis of the whole platform quite a bit I would assume? Michael

Thanks a lot for the quick reply I guess the thing that confuses me is the image on reinervogel.net showing the EQ2 motor. Also in the Online Shop both EQ1 and EQ2 motors look exactly the same and also cost exactly the same...

Hey guys, thanks so much for all that information and help here, this is extremely useful I am about to build an EQ platform myself as well and was wondering about the skywatcher EQ1 vs EQ2 motor, which one to get? Do they share the same characteristics / speed and just have different fittings? On the Nick Hill design you can see an EQ2 motor, in here I found the EQ1 being mentioned a few times. So is there a difference / recommendation? Thanks a lot! Michael