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Ultra portable grab and go


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Hi all,

First post here at the lounge.

I wanted to share my ultra portable travel scope setup with you. It's an ETX90 OTA, de forked and mounted on a UA dwarf star mount. The tripod is a Benro Light. I sometimes use the Bogen 055DX (more stable and rigid), but this tripod fits neatly into my normal airline carry on bag with room to spare.

The rear cell adapter is from Scopestuff, and it allows for two eyepieces to be used at the same time. I replaced the lousy stock finder with the very excellent Rigel Quick finder (a Telrad for short tubes).

The ETX90 has great optics and I'm impressed with the versatility of this little setup.

post-21276-0-02599700-1391729956_thumb.j

post-21276-0-55155100-1391729980_thumb.j

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Hi. Luke the setup.

Interested in the rear cell which allows 2 eyepieces to be attached. Can you confirm what it is called or post a link.

Sure!

There are a couple of ways to do it. I used the old Meade 07036 adapter. It is no longer produced by Meade. Luckily scopestuff..

http://www.scopestuff.com/

Has it now. It's listed as the rear cell adapter. You then need to attach an SCT visual back. The cell allows you to attach any SCT accessory, even a focal reducer.

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Thanks for the detail. I'm still confused as to how you have 2 eyepieces at the same time attached to your scope though?

I think there is a "flip" mirror that directs the light to either one or the other eyepiece. I believe the silver kNob in front of the diagonal controls this.

To use 2 eyepieces literally at the same time you would need a beam splitter in there which would not be too efficient with a 90mm aperture scope.

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Yes, sorry I didn't mention that. There is a flip mirror. I guess my wording was misleading ... You can't use both eyepieces simultaneously, but with an easy flip of the mirror you can change the view. It's not par focal so there is a slight focusing adjustment required. It's just a little easier than taking my gloves off on a cold night :-)

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I've been looking for a tripod mountable alt/az head for my ETX105 ota for a while without much luck, the one you've got looks interesting I can't find a UK supplier for it though, I might try and make one based on that design.

Have you tried mounting yours on an L bracket so that both eyepieces are on top?

James.

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The mount is made by Universal Astronomics. http://www.universalastronomics.com Its not usually stocked by most vendors. Your best bet is to send the owner (Larry P) an email to see what the shipping would be. The L- bracket idea is a good one. I'll look into that.

I can't see a Dwarf star mount on the UA site maybe they changed the name, although dwarf star makes more astronomical sense than micro or macro, anyway I suspect by the time I'd imported one it would be over £200 with taxes and fees, So I might look elsewhere. 

When I looked into my travel set-up I did look at the Dwarf Star, but I went with a Tecnosky Alt-Az and it works well as a travel mount, ultra compact when not set-up.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/195377-travel-scope-set-up/

I like the look of that mount but I think the L bracket might be too short to balance properly with a Mak.

James.

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