badhex

Sorry, I somehow managed to miss this reply, but thanks! It's an odd one, because it's a bit too small for an 80mm doublet (at least, certainly the combination of mount + tripod) and a bit too much faff to set up for anything smaller. It did hold my Skymax 102 very well, though.

Great mod! Never liked that az clutch bolt.

Love the Skymax 102! Never got to use mine on the AZ-GTi but it will be a great match.

If you already have the scope, and you think the tripod is up to it, it can't hurt to have a go. Would recommend only using it in AZ mode, with CW, and try to balance everything as well as possible. AZ bearing should probably handle the scope + CW fine if balanced reasonably well. Alt could be a problem though, If it looks (or sounds) like it's straining too much it might not be a goer. Wind/vibration etc might be excessive on a scope that long. @SuburbanMak might be able to shed light on his experience with an F16, 4 foot classic Clarkson brass tube frac on an AZ-GTi 🙂

TBH it might be a bit much more due to the length than the weight, but with the sturdier tripod you might be okay. Do you have a counterweight?

My main 1.25“ EP case is quite small and I'd like to keep it like that for portability, so I have ended up with a sort of one-in-one-out system. It does mean however that I can't operate to the sensible 1.4x system and have to have bigger jumps, which sort of fits with what you're saying. Currently for non-orthos it is 4.5mm, 10mm, 17.5mm, 24mm. If I had one EP I use least it would be the 24mm MaxVision SWA. It's a good EP but the Morpheus and XWs of this world have highlighted its shortcomings a bit, plus I do most of my observing in Bortle 7/8 skies, so at 24mm the sky starts to become obtrusively light.

The BCO 10mm is the only EP I have in my main set that duplicates another FL, but it's so tiny that I'm happy to keep it as a 'fewer elements' option for planetary, double stars etc. I also have the 6mm and the eye relief is a challenge at times in certain scopes, but as well as the obvious targets already mentioned, I've also found it to be quite interesting to use on nebulae for the higher contrast.

This is great news! Interesting that north level didn't work, I have tended to find it the most accurate and so have a few others which is why it's often recommended. That said there are various different alignment options, so super happy you've found one that works for you! Now you've cracked it you concentrate on enjoying the skies 💫✨

How far out is it? You mentioned in an earlier post that it is still within the finder but obviously not centred. After you centered the star, clicked the align button and moved to the next alignment target, is it *any* closer? Does it exhibit the same sort of error (e.g. Always the same sort of place in the finder) or is it completely random? I reckon filming your experience might also be helpful if you can.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Purely visual observer here. The AZ-GTi is very helpful for faint targets in light polluted skies 🙂

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the mods, how stiff is stiff? 😳 Perhaps along with @Stu's industry standard tap, we need an industry standard slow motion stiffness scale. Starting at zero all the way up to Monty Python's parrot.

Presumably folks have already seen this, but these scopes are now available for order. Perhaps the same situation with the SA GTi - just took a while to come to fruition.

Agreed, I'm also not a zoom fan. I haven't had chance to do any actual observing yet to check the adjustments I made, so I guess I'll see how they work out first and report back. OTOH if it's cloudy this weekend maybe I'll readjust with a scope on there and see if that seems better.

A couple more questions. The tighter you do up the alt clutch, the stiffer the slow motions become. How stiff are the slow motions on your setups? Even when balanced perfectly to start with, changing EPs means some level of imbalance even if only slight, and the Zero seems to be quite sensitive to that. Obviously it's impractical to rebalanced the scope every time you change EPs, so I would have thought the solution is to the tighten the alt clutch enough that the scope can still be moved by hand but does not drift of its own accord, but at this point the slow motions are also quite stiff and I'm worried that it could damage the worm gear. I did adjust worm gear tension per the instructions from Scopetech, but I did this with no scope mounted. Should I perhaps mount the scope, tighten the clutch so there no drift but it can be moved easily by hand, and then adjust the worm tension?

Thanks!

Maybe I'm being thick but wasn't sure if these come as a pair from Flo or just individually?

Had a bit of a fettle with the worm adjustment grub screws and also found a way to put it on the steel leg tripod I have. Definitely seems better although I suspect that the tripod is still not really up to it. Still have to play around a bit finding the right balance between alt clutch friction and smoothness of the slow motions so we'll see. I also tried rotating focuser so the finder arm is horizontal i.e. along the alt axis which has definitely helped. Will see what it's like under the stars as soon as possible.

An ancient Charles Frank GEM in storage and in need of refurbishment An (undermounted here) LXD-55 clone also in storage EQ6-R Pro which sees no use at the moment AZ-GTi, my most used mount Skytee-2, current most used manual mount I've just purchased a Scopetech Mount Zero as well as the Skytee is a bit cumbersome at times, but don't have any great photos yet. Will post up once I do.

Good news, hope it stays smooth. I bought two cheap and cheerful, supposedly push-fit knobs from Telescope Service here in Germany, however I would not recommend that purchase as they don't actually fit. The ADM ones look great, but I balked at the 60 USD shipping same as you. Looking into options so I'll keep you posted, but thinking about perhaps some kind of knurled aluminium stereo system knobs which should fit as most have the 6mm diameter hole. In the short term I might use two knobs from my Skytee-2 as it has 4, two on each side.

I have always oddly enjoyed that my EP case is quite mix and match, and for years the only two in the same range were 6mm and 10mm BCOs. I also had a few Meades but all different ranges (SWA, UWA, HD60). However, since I bought the Morpheus 17.5mm I did end up going back and getting the 4.5mm as well, so it seems I have 4 Baader EPs without really thinking about it. My most recent EP purchase was a Pentax 10mm which is also fantastic, (replacing a Meade HD60) so the trend didn't really continue.

Just in case you haven't tried this combo, try just levelling the tripod using the spirit level and ignore whatever the *mount* itself shows, then do a North-level alignment. If the tripod is level, the az base of the mount will also be level, so this should rule out any levelling issues.

Hopefully you don't have any issues! What scope are you planning to use it with?

Thanks Stu! Very helpful. I'm going to give it a fettle tmw and see where I'm at, maybe stick it on the eq-6 tripod for testing purposes. Hopefully should be able to replicate that nice smooth action in your videos!

Thanks Stu! Don't worry too much if it's a faff.

In general I haven't read much negative feedback about them, but you will always get some teething problems I suppose. As mentioned in my notes, many of the problems I've experienced are not directly to do with the mount itself.