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kilix

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  1. well, 2nd ortho eyepiece arrived today.
    Do not ask me how much I had to google to get to this. BGOs are no longer sold or produced.
    Many thanks to guys from Supra Prague. Proud to own 12.5mm Baader Genuine Ortho, can't wait to try it out on Moon. I believe this will be my dedicated lunar eyepiece in my 127Mak

     

    IMG_0332.JPG

  2. My first Ortho just arrived, namely Baader Classic Ortho 18mm. I considered many EPs and I needed something in the range of 18-24mm, as currently I have only 15mm and then 32mm.
    Quick daytime test revealed more vivid colours and somewhat brighter and more contrasty image compared to my current favourite ES70 15mm.
    Eye relief is nowhere near as bad as I expected.
    So excited, like a little kid! Can't wait for nighttime!

    IMG_0327.JPG

    1. Knighty2112

      Knighty2112

      I just got a second hand Baader Genuine Ortho 7mm EP off a member on here. Got some great solar views yesterday. Hoping to catch the a good look at the moon tonight with them if the skies are clear. 

    2. kilix

      kilix

      how'd it go?
      I still did not manage to try the EP properly, it's cloudy here all the time. I have big hopes for today's night thou.

  3. if you find EQ mount unusable, I would advice going the Alt-Az mount way. For the same amount of money (or less) as a decent spotter costs, you can have a well-known, well regarded ST-80 on an AZ-3 mount. Even easier to operate than a spotting scope because of slow-mo controls (at least the spotter I operated a few times didn't have slo-mo, which was really annoying for astro use). And optics are quite good. Or for a few bucks more you can have the ST102, which has a bit more light grasp. If I were you, I would give it a try, worst case scenario, you sell the scope for 30% less than you bought it, which is not a terribly big deal. They tend to keep their price in second hand market quite well. But I'll bet, that you won't do that, you'll love it If you struggle with mirrored image, you can always purchase an erecting prism for like 50$, but I guess you won't need that. ST80 AZ3 image here note: I went and adviced cheap, but still quite decent astro scopes on AZ mounts. Your scope selection may wary according to what you want from the scope.
  4. Nick, your list of Orion's doubles was extremely enjoyable to follow, so I will follow this one too, looking forward to clear skies (hopefully I will live that long :-) )!
  5. Yesterday I got a first light on my new ST80/400. What a nice little scope. I like it already. The views it gives are not unsimilar to a pair of binoculars... except a bit more powerful. And it is even lighter than my 10x50 bins. No wonder that it is a well known and well liked travel scope. Those wide-field views complement my Maksutov nicely and I can't wait for summer to take it for a hike/camp somewhere dark.

    The AZ3 mount needs a little tweaking thou, but that is perfectly fine with me, I am certainly not both-hands-left-handed. Modding it with counterweight is in progress. What surprised me, is the sturdiness of the AZ3 mount and tripod. Better than AZ GoTo tripod which comes with SkyMax 127 (and Skymax is almost 4x more expensive than this).

  6. yes. The cylinder structure out of which the axis protrudes. If it were not covered with dirty grease in this photo, you could've seen copper commutator bars. When you disassemble the motor, you can gently pull out the white plastic brushholders and then you can also pull out the entire rotor+commutator assembly. Makes cleaning easier. Again, there are tiny tiny washers on the axis, so be careful. Just be gentle when pulling the axis out of the bronze bushing, pull only along the rotation axis, do not wibble-wobble the axis, or you will bend it.
  7. nope, I was on a verge of buying a new motor, but then I thought "it's already screwed up, no further harm will be done, when I look inside" and I did that. What encouraged me the most is the fact, that there is no decent SkyWatcher parts supplier in our country, so buying a new motor from UK and paying for postage would be like 50-60€. The only other option was to buy the entire tripod+head for 90€, which I can buy in Slovakia. I will probably do this procedure to AZ motor too, as a precaution. AZ motor works well now, but I suspect, that it will be filled with that lard-grade schmoo too and it's only a matter of time before it starts failing.
  8. Hey guys, Sorry for necroing this old thread, but I figured, that it may become useful for someone like me, who faces the same problems with quirky movement of alt motor of a SkyWatcher AZ GoTo mount. So, I've read pretty much everything on the internet regarding this issue, nothing helped, what I did is this: Disassembled everything, took out the motor+gearbox assembly. Tried to run it, motor running slowly still. So, next logical step is to remove the gearbox and search for culprit there. I did that, you don't need to worry about not being able to assemble the gearbox again. It contains about 6 gears, there is literally no possibility to assemble it wrong, those gears wont fit any other way. They will only fit the way they are supposed to be. Be careful though, there is one infinitesmall washer on the last bronze gear, don't lose it like I did and then I searched for it for 2 hours. So with the gearbox out of the way, only the motor + pinion remained. Tried to run it, still no improvement. Last thing to try is to disassemble the motor. Careful here, it's almost like clockwork. Brush holders are thin like matches, carbon brushes are about 1x1x3mm big, which is not big at all. The retaining springs are made of some nice material, looks like gold coated maybe, but they are really small and can jump out during disassembly. Here is the the motor, you can see the really tiny brushes in right-center: and as you can see on this photo: the commutator is covered with schmoo. So I cleaned the commutator, brush holders and brushes with tetrachloroethylene, then I applied contact spray. The commutator+brushes are shiny like new. Assembled the motor, BAM, it runs crazy fast and steady. Apparently, the grease from gearbox entered the motor and fouled the commutator+brushes. So, next logical step is to remove all the grease from the gearbox, replace it with sane amount of nice vaseline and assemble everything back together. I also recommend removing the cheap grease from the huge aluminium gear and teflon pads and replacing it with some more useful lubricant.
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