Mini Eq Mount on a Photographic Tripod

[centroid]

When I bought my PST, I mounted it on a standard photographic tripod, as the PST has a standard 1/4" camera threaded attachment point.

This was fine for visual observation, but I wanted to attach a camera and take some images of the Sun, and of course this method of mounting was not suitable for this purpose.

Not wanting to add any more weight to my permanently mounted 10" LX200GPS, as it already carries the ED80, cameras and 7kg of counter balance weights, another equatorial mount was needed.

I decided on the Mini-Eq mount, otherwise known as an EQ1, as this was more than capable of carrying the PST and a web-cam, as well as being quite physically small. The Mini EQ is supplied with three screw-in legs, which act as a 'table-top' tripod.

For me, this wasn't really convenient, and I wanted to mount the Mini-EQ on top of a standard photo tripod. The problem that arose here, was that the Mini-Eq is attached to it's supplied mini tripod base, using an M10 bolt, and the standard photo tripod uses a 1/4" whitworth.

So, this is how I adapted the photo tripod, to take the Mini-Eq mount:

Firstly, I removed the wind-up centre coulumn, from the an old photo tripod. This then left a fairly large diameter hole in the existing plastic top of the tripod.

Having a small 'hobby lathe', I turned and bored a custom 'bush' to fit snuggly into the top of the tripod, and with a hole bored throughout it's length, to accomodate the bolt that would secure the Mini-EQ to the tripod. The 'bush' was made from readily available black Engineering Plastic Rod, know as Acetal Rod or Delrin.

The M10 threaded hole in the lower base section of the Mini-Eq, through which the original M10 bolt with thumbwheel went, was drilled out to slightly oversize, to allow an M10 bolt through as a 'sliding fit'.

A new and longer M10 s/steel bolt was obtained, and this was then inserted into the newly made plastic 'bush', through the now drilled out lower base section of the Mini-Eq, and into the M10 thead of the Mini-Eq mount itself.

The Mini-Eq mount can now be quickly attached to the top of the photo tripod, the mount roughly Polar aligned, it's RA drive switched on, and I could be imaging within quite a short space of time.

Rough polar alignment is quite good enough, as the images are captured as avi's at a round 10 fps, and any small amount of 'drift' can be 'aligned out' in Registax.

The photos are 'split' over two 'posts.

Dave

[geppetto]

That's a great mod Dave 8)

Thanks for posting