Celestron C90 tripod advice

[Okeydokey]

A friend has asked whether he can mount the above mentioned scope on a tripod, anyone got any experience with this?   I've had a quick scan and the jury seems out on it.  Also I have no experience of the mount interface, so if you have done this can you point us in the right direction?

[Alfian]

Hi Okeydokey,

I don't have any experience of the C90, but my 102 Mak will mount quite easily on a standard tripod  and head, mind you its  quite a heavy tripod. This is helpful looking up at higher angles to avoid the whole plot tipping back. Given that the C90 doubles as a spotting scope I would expect it to do the same. Looking at this site:

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=2368

would seem to support that.

[NGC 1502]

A C90 can go on a good solid photo tripod, and would be ok as a daytime spotter scope (birdwatching etc).

But for astronomy, not so good, because you need to track your object to compensate for Earth's rotation, and that's a bit hit & miss with a standard photo tripod.

If your friend could stretch to this http://www.firstlightoptics.com/alt-azimuth/skywatcher-az3-alt-az-mount.html   it would work better, because of the slow motion capability, or perhaps a small equatorial mount, which would track your object with one sweeping movement, rather than the two movements of the mount in the link, more money of course.

Not sure of the C90 to mount fitting, but contacting our sponsors, First Light Optics, should get you a suitable part.

And a warm welcome to SGL, Ed.

[Naemeth]

As before, I'd expect it to be fine on a decent camera tripod for visual.

[Peter Drew]

I think you will find that finding and keeping an object in view other than at lowest magnification mounted on a camera tripod without manual slow motions will be a frustrating experience.