GavStar

15 minutes ago, nicoscy said:

The steeltrack requires a bit of fine tuning every few months but it is quite smooth overall if you maintain it. The craftmanship is not up to FTF levels, but it is much lighter.

Not the same lifting capacity - it being a crayford focuser, but it is a pretty good unit and looks good.  My only "objection" to it is the placement of the finderbase!!!

Yes agreed silly placement of the finderbase holes - too near the centre so the eyepiece will block the finder a fair bit. I’ve just attached the finder base to the wholes on the other side of the tube rings which does the job for my red dot finder.

Interestingly the finderbase holes look much more sensibly positioned on highburymark’s lunt focuser.

13 minutes ago, nicoscy said:

Stretching to a FTF will cost an additional EUR 731 if it is installed by Baader. I asked Thomas Baader when I got on the list for the Baader 95.

That’s quite a lot! The Baader steeltrack works very well for my purposes even with a long night vision stack so I think I’ll stick with it.

1 minute ago, nicoscy said:

That would be me getting on the list for the Baader. I was also on the AP list, thinking I would get whichever was made available to me first. 

Having snagged one of the AP92  Stowaways which hopefully will be delivered before Christmas, I have no intention of getting the Baader.

But yes, one year was the quoted time

@GavStar, that's a lovely looking scope mate!

You’ll note Nicos that in the end I didn’t follow the conclusion from our discussion - when the email came through from Baader it was just too tempting ?

Im really looking forward to seeing the new AP Stowaway soon hopefully ?

20 minutes ago, Tubby Bear said:

Lovely looking scope Gavin.

I've drooled over them on the Baader website myself, but thought they'd stopped building them.

I love the quality of the build ; everything looks top notch. Baader make some quality gear, don't they ?

But the fact you and Clem have been successful in sourcing one gives me more reason to be optimistic that one day.........

If you contact Baader direct by email they will let you order one - I know someone else who ordered one about a month ago. He was given a delivery of about a year though. They are certainly not making lots of them - rarer than an Astro physics Stowaway!!!

So I had first light with the Baader last night. Unfortunately the seeing wasn’t great, so I wasn’t able to push the magnification as much as I wanted to. But what I did see looked great. M45 with my ES 92 17mm was very beautiful.

It doesn’t show the quality of the views but I did a quick phone shot of the moon anyway.

Certainly a very positive session from the scope’s perspective (not so much the mount - had problems with synscan and the sky safari linkup for some reason I haven’t resolved yet)

Unprocessed image of the moon this evening

My current grab and go/travel scope is the televue 85 which is a lovely scope and fine for aeroplane travel. Here’s a recent thread of it going overseas.

However, I’d like to get closer to 4 inches of aperture particularly for planetary observing. I’ve liked the look of the Baader Travel Companion for a few years now - it seemed to tick all the boxes: aperture, short length, light, fluorite and also a fast focal ratio for nightvision use. However, from the Baader website it appears unobtainium...

Then last year, another UK astronomer, Clem, managed to get one and so I decided to enquirer directly with Baader as to wait times. So I was very surprised to get a swift reply saying that they could supply one in six months. That was in January and it’s actually taken 10 months but today my Baader Travel Companion arrived ?

Obviously it’s cloudy this evening but I’m hoping to get First light tomorrow - forecast looks good.

I did have one immediate issue with it - an annoying graunchy focuser but after a quick search on StargazersLounge, I found some advice from Moonshane which sorted the problem - the fine focuser knob needed to be moved a tiny amount away from the course focuser to stop them rubbing. Now the Baader steeltrack is buttery smooth.

Initial impressions on build quality are excellent (as it should be for the price). It seems perfect on the skywatcher az gti Mount. I’ve put a few photos below including one of the travel companion next to my tv85 - as you can see the Baader is actually slightly shorter but has an extra 10mm of aperture. More updates to follow..

The collimation tools have arrived - I just need a dob now!!!

1 hour ago, avtaram said:

Arrived today ' Interstellarum Deep Sky Guide ' I already have the ' Intstellarum Deep Sky Atlas' both are the desk edition.

Avtar

Very interesting! I like the two sketches of the crescent. It looks like one was with a 14 inch scope and one with a 27 inch scope - is that right? Does it say what skies the sketches were made at?

What is the key difference between the atlas and the guide?

1 hour ago, Highburymark said:

And here is the night vision device, just arrived this afternoon from Nighttec in Germany. Just waiting for a small adapter from TNVC in the States now, so will be a week or two before I can fully test it with a telescope and eyepieces - and see how it performs under the most light polluted conditions in central London

Very nice Mark. My newest one has a serial number of 156, only 4 away from you! ?

2 hours ago, Stu said:

I found my old thread on this and the shortened Tak measured at max 18.75", possibly a little less. So that is about 47.6cm, it might work.

Will do some thinking....

Thanks all.

Works fine with my tv85 which is 19” as shown below...(I did have lots of fun when on the way back the security check at tenerife airport asked me to completely empty the backpack for the scan - it was like a tardis with all the stuff that I had managed to pack in ?)

11 hours ago, Stu said:

Excellent kit you've put together there Simon. The Vamo appears to be a great option, particularly with those very neat encoders. How much does it weigh?

The Pelicase 1525 also is a great way to save weight. The 1510 I have is much heavier so I may look into the 1525 as a better carry on option. Do you know what the total weight with scope and mount? I need to fit into 10kg for my US flight coming up so was assuming it would need to be a rucksack job.

Stu, I find the Think Tank Airport Accelerator backpack great for travelling with children since it means you can keep your arms free for other purposes ?.

Not sure how long the Tak is when the focuser and dewshield are removed though...

The new AP Stowaway comes with a pelican 1525 so it must be pretty good though ?

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Better

Maybe FLO could look into getting one designed for the az gti like this - I’m sure it would be popular..

Just received from the US this starlight feather touch retrofit fine focuser for my Takahashi Epsilon (not a fan of the Takahashi mef-3 fine focuser add on so hoping the feather touch works well)

Now I just need to work out how to fit it!

Whenever I read this thread, I smile. ? The OP (long gone now) was asking about the eyepiece cases not the eyepieces themselves. Whereas the focus  generally now (including past posts from me I would add!) is on the contents not the case... ?

(accepting that the last few posts are actually in respect of the cases...)

Mine has just improved and is now back to normal speeds ?

It’s also suddenly and massively slowed down for me on my iPhone this morning whereas previously including yesterday it was absolutely fine.

On 16/09/2018 at 03:17, axle01 said:

I never liked the AZ-GTi saddle clamp so i removed the tin cover inside the clamp which revealed 4 screws, i removed them and the clamp then I dug out a saddle from the spare parts box, i had 3 but 2 had pre-drilled holes in the centre that didn’t line up with the AZ-GTi mount holes but the ADM saddle had no pre-drilled holes so i removed the AZ-GTi saddle and clamped it on the back of the ADM saddle and drilled 4 holes and i now need to go the the bolt shop on Monday and get the correct length bolts then countersink the holes,,,,,easy-peasy.

 

 

 

 

 

Al

Hi Al

Based on your modification, do you think the attached clamp would work (are the holes the right distance apart?)

Thanks

Gavin

Great mod! The saddle is the worst bit imo of the az gti. It works but I certainly make sure I have a safety screw in place when using it.

Hopefully one day soon an easy saddle upgrade will be produced.

Here are the little brothers (for travel and widefield NV views) ?

30 minutes ago, JG777 said:

Oh right, I didn't realise from the angle! Where did you get it? 

Telescope express in Germany - it’s an 11 inch vixen dovetail

1 hour ago, JG777 said:

That's interesting, looks like a fair bit of weight there with your NV kit. Have you sourced a longer dovetail yet? Will be interested to see some pics when you do. One other thing that slightly helped was locating the RDF further forward onto the clamp ring, might not seem much but all the grams add up!

Yes, that’s the pic of my scope with the longer dovetail bar but I only got it this week so have yet to see how well it works...

7 hours ago, JG777 said:

Here's mine, goes anywhere. About 8 kilos I think but for aircraft travel the mount and tripod go in checked baggage the rest with me. 

Very nice setup! I have the same scope. How do you find balancing the scope given the relatively short dovetail bar? I guess I do load mine up from the diagonal ?

So am going to try a longer dovetail bar

19 minutes ago, Piero said:

Thank you for your support!

Which heavy eyepieces did you use with your original Tak DF?

17 Ethos and Es 92 so definitely at the upper end re weight ?

8 minutes ago, Piero said:

Oh well, I'll see how it goes and if it works badly, I'll replace the whole thing with a feathertouch one. 

I think there’s a very good chance you will be happy. I used my mef-3 for a couple of years fine. However I then made the mistake (?) of buying a scope with a feathertouch and it spoilt me a bit I think. As I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, one dark night the mef-3 screws worked loose for a second time ever in 2 years. However I didn’t have the little Allen key with me to tighten them up again in the dark so was reduced to the 1x focuser for the rest of the night - this was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I’ve now had the feathertouch on my Tak for a year and it has always done a perfect job for me with my heavy eyepieces and long NV attachments.