Cosmic Geoff

57832 looks like a typical Ross serial number. Probably early 20th century.

This seems to be the same Nexstar as the ones I use. Why are you setting up in the daytime? If you want to observe the Sun (with filter), then if I remember correctly, you just have to do a solar system align and choose the Sun. Or align on the Moon- you can't use both. It should be easy. IIRC, the alignment mode ( 3 star, auto 2 star, solar system, etc) is one of the first things you select on setup. By the way, even though Celestron supply these wedges and charge a lot of money for them, I have seen few people, if any, have a good word to say about the results, when compared with putting the OTA on a German Equatorial mount. You are unlikely to need the equatorial except for long exposure photography (is that your aim?). I hope that helps.

I have a 70mm Ross vintage scope which has a fairly long focal ratio (significantly longer than f10), a tapered tube originally sheathed in leather (now leatherette) It was originally sold, post-war, by Charles Frank of Glasgow as an astronomical telescope, The focus barrel takes a 32mm Huygenian for which 31.7mm astro items can be substituted. A lot in your photo looks non-original to my eye. In particular, the white tube and the white joystick and black slot. If you quote the serial number, (preferably via a photograph) it will give some idea of your scope's age.

Don't buy the cheaper drive which is an all-in-one running off a PP9 battery. I had one once and it was awful. I ended up binning it. There is a more expensive version with a separate handset and battery pack, which looks more like the drive kit for the EQ5. I have one of these for an EQ5 and it works very well.

This looks very ambitious for a "first telescope". It appears that no expense is being spared. 🙂 Starting cheaper and simpler could save you money in the end.

The jack socket is the size used on various mounts. It is a 2.1mm (inner) 5.5mm (outer). I'm surprised that you managed to break the socket rather than the plug or lead, though, as the socket seems relatively robust. I thought of changing the jack socket on my C8 SE mount because it was making poor connections, and got as far as buying a replacement socket from the now-defunct Maplin, but I found I could not find a box spanner slim enough to undo the outer nut, so had to give up and find another solution. These sockets often cause trouble with poor connections.

I'll just throw out some ideas here which may or may not be helpful: 🙂 Just because the mount is supported by rollers under the horseshoe, that does not mean you have to drive it via the rollers. If you drive it via a metal gear and worm placed at the lower end, then the drive train can have the same sort of worm wheel and worm, motor drive train, electronics and software as in mounts such as the CPC800, EQ-6 etc. The CPC series mounts rotate a fork on a turntable driven by a large worm wheel and worm. The same remarks apply to the declination drive. In fact you might be able to recycle the whole system from a scrapped mount. So no need to invent your drive train, electronics and software from scratch. I have not seen mention above of the requirement to have high speed slew rates (several hundred times the sidereal rate) which are a standard feature of GoTo mounts. You do not necessarily have to use stepper motors. IIRC some mounts use DC servo motors. The SLT mounts have a simple encoder on the end of the motor/gearbox, obviously intended to count the motor revolutions.

It's possible to spend a lot of money on monitors for image processing, but I am not sure how far you need to go for astro pictures. I processed a lot of holiday pictures on a CRT monitor before realising that it was persistently too dim in the dark greys and blacks. On the other hand the screens of my Dell Vostro and budget LCD monitor seem okay.

The kind of mount you will get bundled with a budget telescope is not going to be great. With the Heritage models mentioned more than once above, you are putting most of your money into the optical tube, (and not spending half of it on a flimsy mount) and if you decide you don't like the tabletop mount, you can put the optical tube on a better mount at a later date.

If you are running the mount from 8x internal batteries, then don't - get a proper external power supply.,

By "initialising" I assume that the mount is going through its power up sequence. It could be that a poor contact has developed at the power inlet, and when the mount rotates it breaks the power feed. Power up the mount, give the power lead a wiggle near the mount and see what happens... Possible cure: find a sharp knife and open the central split pin of the power inlet slightly to tighten the connection. Stick some kind of cable attachment to the mount and run the power cable through it to take the strain of the cable moving around as the mount rotates.

You cannot upgrade the SLT style tripod without having the engineering facilities to make an adaptor to fit between the mount head and the new tripod. I bought a spare "cup" from Astroboot and made a set of (more rigid) wooden legs for it. It took ages to make but the tripod is now permanently sited in my garden. It is more rigid then the original and saves setup time.

You should not worry about it too much as the setting circles are essentially ornamental. Even if you could use them expertly, they are only adequate for aiming a very low powered widefield telescope. In the days before GoTo, workable setting circles were at least six inches in diameter, and I have seen circles of two feet diameter in Victorian observatories.

Search and you will find that there are kits from ADM (etc) for attaching a second dovetail to various sizes of SCT using screw positions already provided in the end castings. Then you clamp your choice of rings to the second dovetail. The second bar also makes a great handle for manhandling the OTA.

Does it work as a low powered telescope? What you show in your photos looks like only half a telescope - the back end (when compared with the telescopes in my collection).

The C8 is a good choice, as it has a relatively large aperture but is light enough to be portable, and has a large focusing range (useful for attaching various accessories.) You still have to choose a mount for it, and the bundled options vary greatly in convenience, cost, portability and weight. No doubt you will receive advice recommending all sorts of telescopes at all sorts of prices. It is not possible to buy one telescope which does everything well, which is why there are 57🙂 varieties of telescope on the market. Occasionally new designs appear, hence we have apochromats, SCTs, GoTo mounts, and very recently 'classical Cassegrains' which were not available to Victorian astronomers.

I have several genuine Ross London telescopes and so have taken an interest in the serial numbers. I have never found a definitive guide to the serial numbers, but the lower the number, the earlier the date of manufacture. 49994 could be of the order of 100 years old. But what is it? It looks like it could be an exchangeable eyepiece for a spotting scope.

I second that. It's an accessory well worth having.

I have an 84.48 WH LiFePo4 power tank, which I bought because they are lighter and supposedly more durable than lead-acid. I am happy with it so far, and (wrapped in a clear plastic bag) it was great for working under my car. Also looks like a great emergency light for power cuts. I also have a car starter, acquired with a telescope, which powers the scope and also can inflate my car tyres.🙂 I also have a 7AH sealed lead-acid battery which I bought several years ago which now seems to have lost capacity.

I had a similar problem when one of the plastic mouldings forming the extender clamp of a SE6/8 mount leg cracked across. I stuck it back with Araldite and cut a piece of metal tube to sleeve over the repair, securing it with the Araldite. Even without paint, the repair is not noticeable unless one crouches down to look. Note that you do NOT have to do up the clamps too tightly to stop the leg retracting under load.

If you replace the 200PDS with an 8" SCT you will find it is much lighter and easier to handle, and it is much easier to attach sundry devices such as cameras, flip mirrors and filters because of the large focal range.

1: Skysafari etc will not make the GoTo redundant. You still have to use the GoTo setup though you may be able to dispense with the GoTo handset. 2: You do not need to polar align a GoTo mount unless it is the equatorial variety. You do not need three stars to align - you can align on 1 or 2 stars or 1 planet though this is less accurate. 3: No. 4: I don't know what you mean. For visual use, equatorial GoTo is an unnecessary encumbrance compared with alt-azimuth. 5: No idea. 6: A GoTo mount always needs a finder for initial setup. Often a cheap red dot finder will suffice, as you will not be using it during the viewing session. Guide scope? Are you talking astrophotography? That is a totally different ballgame. 7: No idea. Most vendors supply one eyepiece with an OTA (bare telescope), then you have to buy a set of eyepieces yourself.

If you fitted the motor focuser because of vibration, you can probably ditch it if you are using the EQ3-2. I found that the AZ-4 and EQ-5 mounts were like solid scaffolding when compared with the lightweight GoTo mount & tripod that came with my 127mm Mak. They were orders of magnitude less wobbly.

Why are you using a motor focuser at all? I do not have one for my 127mm Mak. In my experience, the more solid the mount, the less one thinks about remote focusing devices. If I look through the meniscus of my Celestron 127mm Mak, at the positions of the dovetail screws I can just see two screw ends, as though they are screwed through a threaded hole in the tube wall. Further enquiry might be wise. I wouldn't take it off if it was mine. And I don't think this is necessary (see above). Note also that you can swivel the diagonal to any angle you like without having to rotate the main tube in rings. I have put my 127mm Mak (intended for alt-azimuth mount) on an EQ-5 a few times without feeling I was having a particular problem.

Depends on what degree of rigidity you find acceptable. The SE 6/8 GoTo mount commonly bundled with the C8 is probably more stable than the AZ5, but still not great. It is stable enough to operate as a portable visual mount but that's it. The SE 6/8 mount has 1.5" stainless steel legs. Being a narrow field f10 instrument, the C8 is better suited to rigid mounts with powered tracking etc.