SteveA

The prospect of eliminating the play in my RA axis makes me very tempted to order this, though I think I may wait and see how any early adopters get on with this before taking the plunge.  I couldn't see any documentation on the site dealing with installation and adjustment which I think would be a useful read prior to ordering.

Steve

On 16/11/2018 at 16:07, wornish said:

The forecast is for clear skies tomorrow have you tried saying pretty please ?

 

My wife has what is called.....a "stubborn streak" ?

Well...finally I gave in!

Under extreme pressure from Mrs A, demanding ideas for this year's Christmas present I've opted for the Sesto Senso.

I would have liked to have at least had the opportunity to view the Baader offering, but it's been a year now since they talked about re-engineering their product and still nothing to look at. Unfortunately a potential  lost sale Mr Baader !!

Money is unfortunately an object around here and although I can think of plenty of pieces of kit I would dearly love,  I do need to be reasonable. Luckily the price of this sat nicely in the annual Christmas pressie budget. As has been the case in previous years, Mrs A passed me the heady responsibility of ordering my own pressie this year. 

Ordered on Saturday...delivered today (Thursday), all the way from Italia....super efficient and faultless service, though one wonders how Brexit will mess us all  up in the future ? (Opps..sorry for the political point of view...but what the hell)

Slightly unimpressed however...Mrs A has put her foot down!

No looking touching etc... etc. until  Dec 25th....damn  it!   ???

Steve

That is a possibility I guess. As you say the PrimaLuce rings are really rather expensive, especially when you consider the fact that a set of rings of this size from Skywatcher are only about £50. 

It seems to me that Synta are missing a trick here. Their latest mounts are equipped with dual Vixen/Losmandy clamps, but all their OTAs come with only a Vixen dovetail (I assume that statement is correct?). I know Synta have drawn criticism on certain aspects of their hardware over the years and in some cases have addressed these, strangely I've never heard complaints relating to mounting bars etc.

Steve

So...a wet Saturday afternoon and sitting at work slightly bored....always dangerous!

I got to thinking about mounting my F4 Quattro on a Losmandy style mounting plate.  I upgraded the EQ6 dovetail mounting clamp to an Altair dual Vixen/Losmandy clamp a while back and although this clamp is a seriously beefy bit of kit,  the Vixen/Synta dovetail seems fairly flimsy in comparison. It seemed like a fairly obvious thing to consider just replacing the standard dovetail with a nice wide and presumably more stable Losmandy plate. However, this doesn't seem as easy, possibly not even feasible with the Skywatcher tube rings, which are obviously designed for the standard dovetail. The attachment between the tube rings and the dovetail is on a remarkably small base and even if it were possible to attach these rings to a Losmandy plate, this small attachment base would likely not increase the stability of the mounting to any degree. So.....how about upgrading the tube rings? I almost had it when I stumbled across the Primaluce tube rings. Unfortunately....not available for tubes with 288mm OD! Very anoying as these would have been just right.

https://www.primalucelab.com/astronomy/250mm-plus-support-rings.html

So...the big question....Losmandy plate and a Skywatcher 250 Quattro...is it possible?

Steve

On 07/06/2018 at 22:12, Craney said:

Overpriced....??   ... good point.

Well my mount has some serious polar issues with the original bolts chewing the metal work.  Considering the hassle and possile DIY skill needed to correct the problem and enhance the axis movement, the price is possibly justified.   It's predessessor was about twice the price, but did look like a piece of well engineered artistry.

Will be interested how you get on with it.

Cheers,

Sean.

I have the predecessor.....it was expensive, but it was also a huge lump of superbly engineered aluminium. I was surprised to see  it being no longer made. Despite a few small issues it was a great bit of kit?

Steve

3 hours ago, misterp said:

I have a Primaluce electric focuser and think it’s great.

One thing I would like is a hand control unit so when doing visual I don’t need a pc

Ian

I'e yet to hear anything bad about this...I'm finding it increasingly tempting!

I think I will wait though until Baader release their replacement SteelDrive...just to try and make a comparison..

I have to say it hadn't occurred to me that there was no hand controller available with the Primaluce unit, not particularly an issue for me, but I do take your point...

Steve

Really stunning.......thanks for sharing.

Steve

1 hour ago, FLO said:

 we have added an additional one just above the videos just to be sure

Good call....thanks.

You knew it was a solar telescope and so did I....but to someone who was maybe slightly less well informed, it just looks like a regular small refractor (well almost).

Steve

Very interesting bit of kit that.....

Nice videos, though maybe they should have included a safety warning re observing the sun with the correct sort of equipment? I was almost expecting fried eye balls as the guy looked through the eyepiece....

Steve

That's also a pretty impressive set up you have there, the Eagle control unit looks ...frankly damn lovely! 

I was just viewing the Primalucelab video .....that looks like an amazing piece of equipment. I doubt I could sneak that one past the wife though

Steve 

6 minutes ago, RayD said:

One other advantage with the Lakeside is the ability to drive the focuser without being connected to a computer, such as visual work etc. by using the controller in manual mode and pressing the buttons on it.  That isn't possible with this device.  You have to have a computer connected to use it.

I suspect this is intended really for AP exclusively, where invariably you will be connected to a computer.

That wouldn't really be an issue for me as I've got a permanent setup and am pretty much reliant on the PC for most things anyway.

I have to admit that this really caught my eye because of the design, It certainly looks prettier than the Lakeside unit and I guess this is down to the Italian styling. Of course styling isn't everything but when it comes to making a decision on these things it might be one of the thing to consider.

Steve

Some very interesting comments there Ken...you clearly have plenty experience of these type of devices, which I haven't!

I'll await your You Tube video with interest and I will definitely at least wait until the new Baader drive is released before making any kind of decision on this.

Cheers

Steve

Thanks Ray.....I'm certainly going to give this some serious consideration. It does look like a very well engineered piece of kit, if a little on the expensive side.

From the images I've seen I take it that the drive clamps around the collar around the focuser shaft? The only disadvantage I can see over the old Baader unit is that you do of course loose the ability to manually focus with the fine focus knob

I'll probably wait until the new Baader drive is released before deciding which way to go on this. That's only a couple of months off now so having waited since last summer I may as well stick it out.

Thanks ..

Steve

I cant quite believe I missed this at Astrofest last week...I must have had my eyes shut!

https://www.primalucelab.com/astronomy/sesto-senso-robotic-focusing-motor.html

So there's me waiting and waiting for the replacement Baader SteelDrive and there is already what looks like a great bit of kit available now.

I saw a few people having sourced these but wonder actually what the kit is like and particularly the compatability and installation on a Baader Steel Track focuser. If anyone has installed this on the NT version I would be very interested to hear your comments.

Steve

Bowled over by that one! 

Steve

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

That's true. The other reason is that it makes the image more repeatable if you want to come back to it for more data in the future. It takes ages to recover an arbitrary camera angle when framing. And then there are mosaics. I once tried to do a mosaic with an arbitrary angle optimized to the target. Never again!!!

Olly

Why on earth didn't I think of this? It's the simplest of solutions and I have always struggled when returning to a target to get a similar orientation.....?. I'll be making this part of my process from now on...thanks.

Lost for words..tears in my eyes...

Me too...

Just used some rubber bands...

Hi,

Welcome to SGL...

Just a quick note praising the service from Bern at Modern Astronomy.

I purchased a TS OAG from Bern last year and like others I found the screws used to lock the prism turret were tricky to get tight on the turret.

Whilst at AstroFest I had a word with Bern who said he could sort me with some of the fabled "solder tipped" screws as he had some. I had actualy been trying to work out where to source some of these, so I jumped at the chance. I dropped Bern an email after AstroFest and received the screws this morning...free of charge of course..

Thanks Bern:headbang:

Interesting to see that TS have modified the design of the OAG now...looks like some of the design issues have now been sorted.

Steve