DaveL59

So today arrived some black nylon penny washers, approx 1.5mm thick, off with the TAL hub, a very nifty arrangement for the leg bolts I must say: The screw arrowed stops the pivot bolt from rotating and there's a stop that prevents the lever from being undone too far too. So then with lots of faff and fiddling, assemble the EQ5 tripod hub while placing 3 washers one side and 2 the other to fill the gap and then on with the EQ5 mount: And lastly the 100RS for a vanity pic: yeah, yeah, no balance weight, I know 🙄 Looks pretty good to me, just as I'd imagined in my mind's eye lol and seems as solid as the SW tripod with round steel legs that the GoTo EQ5 is on once the pivot bolts have been nipped up tight 🙂 The base of the EQ5 mount is like this: It'd sit on the TAL hub but the bolt from the EQ5 cup wouldn't be workable, too long and also the plastic thumbwheel arrangement won't turn as it pretty much locks into the leg mountings on the TAL hub. So I might just go order one of those EQ5 adaptors off Ali and bolt that to the TAL hub and put the legs back on that. While it seems to work OK transferred over, I think the TAL hub may be just a little more stable, plus I now have a set of legs that aren't usable for anything... Now of course the issue will be leaving it set up and hoping the kitties don't think "oooh, new scratching post, gotta go give that a try!" 😱

might work Mark, will have to measure up. I'd sort of like to have the TAL tripod as-is and have the option to shift the EQ5's around if needed, hence thinking maybe that Ali one might be worth trying. Easy enough to drill and tap the base to be able to bolt it onto the tripod boss, then drill out for the EQ5 securing bolt for which I'd have to source a suitable one.

Following my post in the postie thread, I wonder if something like this could be made to work to adapt the EQ5 head onto the TAL wood tripod, leaving the original TAL tripod head in place. The top of the tripod looks like this Alternative is to just swap the legs onto the EQ5 tripod head, awaiting some spacers/nylon penny washers to do that at the moment as a get me going quick-fix. The EQ5 can't directly go onto the tripod without some form of cup as the part of the mount that sits in the cup on the SW tripod isn't flat underneath, had a look earlier this evening but didn't take a pic, typical! Oh for a lathe and a suitable billet of metal... looking at certain makers sites, ouch those sort of bits are expensive 😮

I think I may have a TAL x4 barlow too tho can't recall, will have to check sometime. All the EP's are solidly made so quite likely they are TAL, shame they don't carry the markings but they work fine which is what counts. Shame the lighting in the shots I have don't capture the nice colours on the top lenses, will have to do a better pic some day 😉 That little TAL-M is so simple to use and only missing the extension tube and spanner from the original kit, so I made an extension with some acrylic tubes, flocked to prevent reflections. So in combo with the x3 barlow and 15mm EP that little scope gets up to around x160 with good views, even via the finder when I've forgotten to slide it out of the optical path 😄

My collection as it is, starting with the baby TAL-M that I refurb'd a couple years back, some time after this pic, and the TAL-1 on a manual mount. The TAL-M came in its original wood box, sadly don't have those for the others. The TAL-1 has been updated with the later 1.25 inch focuser My 100RS (green objective) sitting on the EQ5 Synscan mount, R&P mount that has very long travel. It now sport the bigger 8x50mm finder and hopefully soon will have some nice TAL wood tripod legs too 🙂 The eyepieces: (all TAL at least AFAIK, as supplied with the scopes to the original owners) Also have the Lanthanum 2x Barlow not shown above as well as the x3 Barlow for the TAL-M (32mm barrel fit). The TAL-1 was bought specifically for its russian-fit eyepieces as I was after a 25mm for the TAL-M as regular 1.25's can't easily work with that scope unless you also adapt the built-in finder.

That was the original plan John 🙂 Thinks I'll need some penny washers to do that as the TAL boss is 45mm vs the SW ally leg one at 35mm. The one the GoTo is on has the round legs so a different fitment that wouldn't work. I'll find a way... 🙂

Not sure Mark, but wasn't in the listing and sounds like it's just sat in a corner for a very long time so if there was a cup it may have gone walkies long ago. As for the EQ5, yeah single central bolt but the mount sits into a cup on the SW tripod head. Might work tho and agreed re some big washers to spread the load 🙂

so true and of course that's pushed prices up lots too. I was at one time looking at surveyor tripods but they've jumped in price in many cases and many are collect, so not many over my way. Now I'd just need to find a TAL head for a wood tripod... maybe - tho I think with the EQ5 it'd be just fine with the convenience of either GoTo or dual-motor drive. The top of the tripod boss looks like this: So I guess it may be possible to just bolt the EQ5 directly via that central hole? Will try that at some stage later perhaps, but that'd be a fair chunk of weight. Might be OK tho once the scope is balanced up etc.

Been a while since I bought any astro gear but when this came up I couldn't resist hitting the buy button A very nice TAL wood tripod, looks barely used at all. It won't hold the TAL pier mount I have on the TAL-1 as I don't have a converter for that, but plan will be to fit the legs to one of the EQ5's tho I may need to use some packing washers to match the gap. Should look nice with the 100RS riding above 🙂

Other thing to consider with a PC PSU, the 12V isn't really geared to serve a high current load, it only spins a couple fans and HDD's maybe an optical after all. A large server type with capacity for several fast HDD's on the other hand may suit tho they'd be expensive and even then a dozen HDD's isn't that high a current load.

I've used just a drop or 2 of fairy in the past, tho I'd not put the entire carrier into the mix, I see you didn't either tho 🙂

Wow that is one heck of a bargain as Mark says. They're rock solid scopes and with luck the mirrors will be fine, they seem to last a long time. Is it equipped with the later 1-1/4 focuser and eyepieces as that'd make things a lot easier if you want to try others later on. Astrobaby did an overhaul of the non-motorised one if you want any sort of a DIY guide. Good luck and have fun with it 🙂

oh dear, lets hope they get their issues sorted, soon. Virgin Orbit to pause all operations from Thursday - BBC News

Well, there's a number of us that had DIY's a phone carrier or adapted the OEM one to use on other scopes. You can also use SkEye in a similar way though it doesn't plate solve so accuracy can be problematic when using the phone sensors alongside a steel tube. You'd need to come up with a phone holder and mounting method to suit the scope of course but isn't expensive to do. There's a couple threads on either on the forum. As to whether Celestron will eventually market their system as an add-on, I think it may, eventually and there's been several voice interest. When it works it is very convenient and almost no setup time compared to a GoTo system.

Haven't tried those but they look much like many out there. One check if you plan on using for night sky would be to aim at brighter stars/planets/moon and see if you get a line in the view - you may see it when the bright object intersects the roof edge, roughly central. If so that'd be the roof edge on the prisms, some older/cheaper ones show that but how much that interferes/bothers you is a personal thing. You can just shift the view slightly so the bright bits aren't on/crossing the edge after all 😉 Good luck with them, a bargain price so if using for regular daytime stuff should be fine.

The mount is almost complete. Legs would each bolt in position 1 (per leg, x3 legs), the screws/bolts from the donor legs would slide into the slots on the last pic which make them easy to remove so you'd need to be careful lifting the rig if you've loosened those bolts 😉 Having swapped a Celestron starsense tripod legs for old/vintage ones they're often of a similar gap or can be splayed slightly to fit without too much issue. Where I've marked 2 above there should be a metal bar and a weight that would act to counter-balance the weight of the reflector tube (OTA - optical tube assembly) and without that you might find the slow motion controls hard to turn and potentially wear/jam. As circled below from the second ebay listing. You might even be able to use the tripod and mount from that scope but the way the OTA fits is different. Looks like there's a plate that bolts onto the OTA so it may be possible to adapt that to fit yours, or just use the ebay one as-is and see how it goes then decide what you want to do with the one you have 🙂 The diameter that was being asked about is likely these parts where I marked a blue line: re Modern scopes use 1.25-inch (31.5mm) bore where the old japanese scopes were often 0.965-inch and these are harder to get decent eyepieces in now.

I'd prefer the wood legs for less wobble, but yes as that's a complete scope with luck the eyepieces would work on the other, or if not it may be a simple swap to switch the focuser over (4 screws). There's also the balance bar and weight that don't seem to be in any pics of the kit were talking about on the thread and hopefully could be used on either. Also it has a telrad finder, if you like/prefer those 😉 So on balance this may be the better choice.

if the whole mount head is complete and all that's missing is the legs for it, then perhaps a punt on this might be worthwhile Telescope On Tripod No Insides Not Working | eBay just transplant the legs and dispose of the rest 🙂

I'd imagine that causes all sorts of confusion for insects and wildlife in the region too which could cause drops in numbers etc. As to importing, well I guess in part the goal is to not have to import and so add to the carbon footprint, yeah I know, we import the bulk of fruit and veg these days so what's a little bit more. Another thing, for me at least, US products could be GM, for example and in the past when I did buy some from Costco here, US source, typically oversize and totally tasteless. Never bought them again and am more inclined to avoid US products given they allow stuff like that (no offense MLQ). I'd far rather buy in season local product, esp some of the heritage varieties which were the tastiest strawberries I've ever had tho Tesco don't seem to get that many and they disappear off the shelves real quick.

While I have an EQ5 goto I generally use the adapted Starsense/mobile these days, unless I'm hitting easy targets like the major planets, then just let the Goto or the dual-motor EQ5 mount track on the RA having set them roughly polar aligned. Same works for the old SW130EQ2 too. Quick and convenient and with the odd minor tweak to account for any alignment error/drift it works pretty well.

yep I'd seen that reported also, be good if cities made businesses and monuments etc cut back on lighting, both from an energy/environmental POV but also to return some of the lovely night skyscapes we rarely get to see now. Here I note they have reduced the brightness of the LED street lighting and it dims further after 10-11PM. Downside to that tho is I've had to add an IR flood in front as there's no longer enough light from the lamp opposite any more, oh and its now much harder to get the key in the lock when I get home in the hours of darkness 😄

The other issue with copper cat5e and other LAN cable is when it's not really copper. CCA is quite common esp in cheaper cables like the rolls bought at DIY places and the like. While it'll work just fine, initially, environmentals can have a big impact on lifespan when the copper coating breaks away from the aluminium core. Also it isn't a good idea to use CCA if you plan do do PoE esp if the end load needs a reasonable amount of current. CCA could then overheat and cause fires. As far as environmental issues with LAN cables, corrosion at the plug/socket can be reduced by using dielectric grease but be warned that if you plug/unplug often as in setup/break down your kit nightly etc, that grease will get on your hands and anything the cable end contacts with so could leave you with a major optical cleaning task before you know it. It does work well tho, I've a couple cameras outside and no issues with the LAN/BNC connections in the 4+ years they've been operating.

so root cause seems that a fuel filter dislodged in the second stage UK space launch: Dislodged fuel filter blamed for rocket failure - BBC News

In case anyone's not aware instrument fail that's so far not been resolved, which looks for/at exoplanets.