smartybones

well isnt that typical.....i just hope the missus doesnt see that on ebay... i will get skinned alive!!!

I have been searching ebay and the like for the last few weeks looking for a mount, and none came up that was a reasonable price/distance to collect. The closest i came was last week, when for just a little over £200 inc delivery was a good as new eq5, which afterwards i was glad i did not get, the bloke was advertising it as the mount plus a polar scope, which I now know comes with the scope..

never mind.

I got a good deal from first light optics, (see my post above)

Ahhhh,,,, at last.

I finally scraped some pennies together and got myself a mount for my telescope. I got myself a Skywatcher EQ5 deluxe (£238) and the dual axis motor kit, (£88) from first light optics.

The mount is a lot heavier than I ever thought it would be, I doubt it will move even in a strong wind. I was pleasantly surprised to find a polar alignment scope built into the mount already.

The only thing now is to find a patch of sky to look at.... I was hoping for clear skies tonight to get a good look of Saturn while its in opposition...

Those Phillips Spc900 are as rare and as hard to find as dark matter !!!!

I do have a Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 knocking around my desk somewhere, I belive those are quite good for AP

Not a fan of GIMP, but I can find my way around Photoshop CS5.5 quite well.

Thanks for your input Rik,

As you can guess, my knowlage of telescopes is a fraction above clueless, and the fraction bit comes from two days of reading web articles.  My list of books to read is getting larger and larger.

My ambitions of AP is a long way off yet, but is something I do plan on in the future. I need to find my way around the sky first, in the meantime, the kit to connect my nikon is not bank busting, and should get some good results of the moon.

Thanks for that Peter.

Yeah, I was beginning to think the EQ5 was going to be the realistic minimum and for a little while will be a little out of my price range. that said, If I am going to have to wait, I would sooner wait a little longer and get something better than the minimum required. Long term my plans are to attach my Nikon dSLR to it and enter the wondrous world of AP.

So for the time being, I will be getting my carpentry tools out and will make somthing similar to the mount on the Skywatcher Heritage 130, Its a simple design and easy to reproduce on a larger scale for the extra weight. barings will be the issue, getting a smooth movement but a solid platform for viewing. But for now, the moon and the planets will keep me occupied until I get a good solid mount.

Marty.

Hi people....

My wife bought me my first scope for xmas, but unfortunately I do not have a mount. I need to get myself a mount desperately, but funds are VERY limited.

I know whatever I get will end up being replaced later on in the year for something more substantial like a EQ5, Being realistic, but I need something I can use now.... my budget will be below £150 so any suggestions would be most appreciated.

I have considered making myself a basic dobsonian mount from plans available online, but with the relitively short tube of the 150mm Maksutov-Cassegrain, and the position of the eyepiece its not an ideal solution. are there any other options that I could bang together in my shed?

Marty.