Vixen frac on a SupaTrak Mount

[John]

This is my Vixen ED102SS mounted on one of the new Sky-Watcher SupaTrak mounts. I've had to upgrade the tripod as the original was rather insubstantial.

The mount holds the 3.2kg OTA fine and tracks very well for a "grab and go" driven mount. It's not GOTO - you just dump it down with the tube pointing roughly north, power up and slew to what you want to look at. It kept Mars in the middle of a 200x field for 10-15 minutes at a time before I had to touch the control panel which is fine for my observing.

John

(click to enlarge)

[A McEwan]

Luvvly Jubbly!

How did you 'upgrade' the legs - use some from an EQ3 or similar or fill them with some sand or something?

AM

[John]

Luvvly Jubbly!

How did you 'upgrade' the legs - use some from an EQ3 or similar or fill them with some sand or something?

AM

I just bolted on some standard AZ-3 type legs. They are not that substantial themselves but you can take that as an indicator of how feeble the ones supplied as standard were (or at least seemd to me). Ultimately I might fit a taller set of wooden legs to it but these will do for now.

To be fair to Sky-Watcher, the original tripod was adequate when the mount was used with the 127 Mak OTA that came with the SupaTrak but when I put the longer OTA of the Vixen on there was just too much flex. I've found that longer OTA's do that to mounts. One issue I did have to deal with is that the tripod leg lugs on the base of the SupaTrak mount are about 4mm narrower than on the AZ-3 so I have had to insert some spacers (washers) to keep everything solid.

John

[centroid]

Not seen one of those mounts before John. Looks like an ideal 'grab n go' set up.

Dave

[barkis]

What a nice compact setup John. That Vixen looks a classy piece of work. I have never had the pleasure of using that type of instrument.

Allied to the driven mount, It's hard to imagine a more comfortable way to spend an evenings viewing, especially with the tracking ability as good as you said. At 4" the lens must deliver some cracking visual sights. Also, what a boon it must be to take it with you so easily.

It has many plusses, and no built in frustration as I see it.

Ron.

[John]

What a nice compact setup John. That Vixen looks a classy piece of work. I have never had the pleasure of using that type of instrument.

Allied to the driven mount, It's hard to imagine a more comfortable way to spend an evenings viewing, especially with the tracking ability as good as you said. At 4" the lens must deliver some cracking visual sights. Also, what a boon it must be to take it with you so easily.

It has many plusses, and no built in frustration as I see it.

Ron.

Thanks Ron. The Vixen is a lovely scope and has a bit of SGL history - it was owned by 3 other SGL members before I got my hands on it

That is a nice feature of driven fork mounts - the viewing is generally relaxing - none of those funny angles that eq mounts get you into !.

John