catman161

Nice work Steve. What kind of Altitude was Jove at at this early hour of the morning? 

Oh yeah, undoubtedly. My grab n go is alt/az and my other setup is permanently set up so polemaster is useful in that situation. Agree the RA addition if you’re out and about at dark sites is brilliant.  

I initially started out doing something very similar but in a much more crude way years ago by fitting a plumbing part called an end stop to a Nikon right angle finder and just push fitting it over the polar scope on my old NEQ6 - worked a treat. Now I use a QHY pole master camera. No more achy back or cold/wet knees  

A couple of years back I had the same idea and ended up building it all myself after sketching out some ideas. I am in no way a skilled carpenter but the project turned out ok and I learnt lots along the way. 

Havent looked back since. I now leave everything permanently mounted and also cover the OTA as well as an extra precaution and have a dehumidifier in situ within the roll off shed. I went for the option of placing the shed on brass wheels that are intended for electronic gates. Each wheel has a load carrying capacity of 500kg. I just flip the cut out in the floor and push the shed back and off I go. I stand in the shed controlling the scope via EQMod on the laptop.  

Awesome  

Update - big day today - trial run ! Put the pier roughly in place along with the mount and scope etc - plugged everything into the control box - went inside - plugged network cable into the laptop - fired up the laptop - 30 metres away from the scope in my nice warm lounge - positioned my wife where I could hear her but she could see the scope - clicked on an object in Stellarium - hit CTRL 1 - and you will never guess what happened !!!!! IT WORKS !!!!! Tried many slews with Focusmax, PHD2, Astrtortilla, APT, and anything else I could thinknof all running at the same time and it never missed a beat - spot on first time. Large dram required !

That is fantastic news! I love it when a plan comes together

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These are my only captures from this year. Back in April I managed a few runs on Jupiter with my Altair Astro Planeta 250 Truss Cassegrain and ASI120MC at Native F18.

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What a great build. Well done and thanks for sharing. That's a very good piece of work right there

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That is absolutely fantastic. Sterling work right there. I'm gonna have a go at Uranus with ASI120MC and Planeta later if the skies clear here. I can only hope to get something even close to as good as that. Thanks for sharing.

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Cheers james

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One thing I would like to know-sorry this is going to seem such a dumb question and will have many rolling their eyes I imagine-how do you quantify backlash or indeed know it's present and also how do you measure how much you need to correct it by when you do find it and also how do you correct it?? Sorry, it's just it's been mentioned a few times in earlier posts in this thread and if I ever take apart my AZEQ6 id like to know how to recognise it. Cheers

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That's fantastic news Mike let me know when the guide is ready and I will gladly take one off your hands.

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This is a really interesting thread. My azeq6 is brand news and works fine at present but I would certainly Pay a tenner for a comprehensive guide as I am sure in the future I may like the idea of tinkering with it.

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If it's for planetary imaging my personal opinion would be the C11. I do only planetary imaging and I yearn for a C11 with every fibre of my being well most of my being-the rest of wants a C14 lol!

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A true great mind if our time. So much great work left as a legacy. RIP Sir Patrick

Skywatcher Skyliner 200p Dobsonian

Celestron Skymaster 15x70 Binoculars

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