Doc

Just spent the last few months designing and building myself a new Alt/Az mount. In case you have not seen the build thread it's on the following link https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/307728-my-new-diy-altaz-mount-a-panther-clone/ I'm really pleased with results, it's dead smooth and balances perfectly, even when the large 31 Nagler is used, there is no need to rebalance between eyepiece changes. All I need to do now is sort out the encoders. I called my first mount I made the "DocMount", I can't think of a name for this one at the moment, maybe someone will have a good name. Here's a few photo's and a video link via youtube, for some reason I can't seem to embed it. Video link is: https://youtu.be/vChMQ2Q8Q30

Glad you liked it Sunshine

Crater Drygalski is very hard even when the moon is at it's greatest libration it's still almost impossible to get a good view. From my notes I have writtren: Number 94 Crater Drygalski Found the crater Casatus with it's two internal craters J & C very easily through the 12.5mm ortho and if I look towards the limb of the moon I could make out craters A. K, and D and in the distance right on the terminator I could see a range of high mountain like objects, which I persume are the 11800 feet wall of the crater Drygalski. I made this asumption mainly due to the fact as Drygalski is the deepest/highest crater between the limb and Casatus so I must have been looking at it's rim. As you can see I only caught the rim of this crater, I do remember trying a few times to get a better view but it's really hard.

Even if your replacement mount has bolts that don't bend I bet you a Mars bar that within a few months you will buy stainless steel replacements, everyone does it's one of the regular upgrades.

Well keep us all informed with the outcome.

It's worth a try

You are cutting of your nose to spite the face. Skywatcher are not going to change, for the sake of £25 you buy ready made stainless steel replacements. If you don't you will have the hassle of sending it back, trying to get a replacement or your money back. It's more hassle then it's worth in my opinion. At the end of the day spend £25 and you have a great mount.

When I bought my HEQ6 many years ago I knew about the problem and just bought the upgraded bolt kit. I know the mount should come with these bolts as standard but in the 10+ years they have been around they haven't. It's a great mount apart from that so I would just bite the bullet and buy the upgraded bolts, or make some yourself.

Exactly the same reasoning and conclusion I've come to as well. I will keep this and maybe invest in a Baader non correcting prism. Thanks for your help I really do appreciate it.

That's what I thought. I haven't observed any bright planets yet so cannot say what it is like on them, the only one I think I should be worried about is Venus. I'm concerned that if I swapped it, I could get a worse one, then I might get a better one, not sure what to do. I have nothing to compare it to so I'm in the dark really. I really like the one I got, it oozes quality and performs really well.

Just out of curiosity Andy what do you find wrong with the original one fitted to your Esprit? I'm only asking as I have the 120 ED Esprit and would like to know how they compare.

I had a 3 1/2 hour session tonight and it took a little while to get used to it but I must say I'm pretty impressed. On the moon it was fantastic, in my opinion it didn't degrade in any way. I got out my Rukl moon atlas and I followed certain areas of the moons surface and it was so easy to follow as everything is the correct way up. Star hopping was also dead easy, I used Skysafari and found a lot of dim objects such as the Eskimo Nebula with ease. I can't believe how much easier star hopping is without the need to think which way I need to go, left is left and right is right, simples. I managed to find Uranus by star hopping so I'm pretty impressed. Star colours seem a lot more vivid using the APM Prism diagonal instead of my Skywatcher diagonal. Yellow and red stars really seemed to pop with colour. I inserted my 2" eyepieces into the both focusers and compared the view and I couldn't detect any restrictions or light loss so I cannot see any reason not to believe that the prism diagonal has less then the 46mm aperture it claimns to have. There was two negatives the first one was on certain stars like Capella and Procyon I could easily detect a line similar to what a spider vane produces. I've read about this line before and it is produced by the joint in the prism. APM says it is almost invisible and on medium to dim stars I will agree but on bright stars it's quite easy to see. The second negative was brighter stars seemed to be a little bloated compared to the normal diagonal, this was very slight and didn't occur at all on dimmer stars. I'm not sure why this happened, it needs a little detective work to find out if indeed it was the prism or atmospheric conditions. None of the above observations are completely scientific and I would imagine there are better tests to do, but I don't know them. Overall I'm happy with the prism diagonal especially on Lunar work it was simply fantastic.

Father Christmas was very nice to me and bought me an APM 2 inch Erect-Image-prism with fast-lock. http://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/optical-accessories/stardiagonal-mirror--prism/apm-2-inch-erect-image-prism-fast-lock-ultra-broadband-coating According to the product information on the website the diagonal has a full 46mm of free aperture, the most ever developed. Well tonight is meant to be a clear night so fingers crossed I can give a test and of course I will let you know what it is like. But in the meanwhile I can say thet it arrived in a very nice sturdy white box, which was padded with styrofoam type of material. The diagonal itself feels very well made and oozes quality. It feels weighty and the click lock system works very well indeed. While setting up today I compared both my Skywatcher and APM on a distant ariel and I can confirm that the APM diagonal needs 11mm of in travel of the focuser to come to the same point that the Skywatcher focused. Anyway here's a few photo's to wet your appertite.

I just stick them on the radiator after an observing night. They not that great actually but better then nothing I suppose.

I bought it many years ago from e-bay, it was sold as a case to hold a record player deck/DJ equipment.

Yes Alan I still have them, in fact very pleased with them, love the view through them. There is a lot of room left so I could increase my collection, but concentrating on increasing my collection of Clave Paris eyepieces at the moment.

Here is mine, it consists of the entire Delos range and of course the 31mm T5.

Finally got my Berlebach Planet Tripod, meant to be a Xmas present (thanks FLO) but I sweet talked the missus into leting me have it now. This was double packed and just feels and oozes quality, fantastic piece of kit and well chuffed. Have took some photo's with my mount and scope on it and will post later. It came with the DM6 head, double clamps, and both sets of feet.