Celestron Astromaster 130EQ mods

[alan687]

Firstly im new to the fourms so hi everyone

ive been using the 130EQ for about a month now and it is just a cracker telescope for the money but i desided it was time for a few upgrades.

i have ordered Barlow Lens 3 Element 3x and Meade Series 4000 6.4mm eyepiece

The eyepiece has 13mm of eye relief so it should be a nice improvement that means that i now have a 20mm 10mm and a 6.4mm giving me 32.5x,65x,100x and with the barlow 97.5x, 195x, 300x.

Some might say that overpowered but the max for the 130EQ ranges from 260x to 325x so it will be nice to see what this telescope can do

anyway with the higher mags i added alot of weight to the tripod to steady it i got a old paint tin, filled it with scrap metal and hung it from the tripod, the tin weighs about 9.2kg so its quite heavy thats the only downside to it. i also striped the EQ mount completly, cleand it regreased it and adjusted the slowmotion gears so everything is tight with no play but still turns fine.

The standard tripod and scope took around 8 secconds to steady itself, thats a long time but with the extra weight and lovering the center of gravity it now steadys in just 3 secconds and i think that is pretty good

any tips on other improvements i can do are welocmed

pics

[MyRomeo]

Have a think about flocking the tube too, made a big difference to the contrast on my 130eq. 

The biggest issue I find is that the scope is not that stable on the tripod, the slightest knock and it wobbles around real bad. I find the tripod great when used with my DSLR and 300mm lens so I guess the 130eq is just a little large for it. Maybe a longer dovetail would be more stable? I don't know. 

I like this scope for observing lunar and planets but its not very good for photography! 

[Gina]

I agree - I found the tripod the worst part of the whole package.  In fact my first upgrade was a new mount and tripod - I saved up and bought an NEQ6 with a view to future proofing as much as possible and imaging.  Never regretted it and it's done me well for three years though the tripod was replaced with a concrete pier and covering shed (observatory for posh ).  Replacing the wobbly tripod made a huge difference.

[alan687]

I agree - I found the tripod the worst part of the whole package.  In fact my first upgrade was a new mount and tripod - I saved up and bought an NEQ6 with a view to future proofing as much as possible and imaging.  Never regretted it and it's done me well for three years though the tripod was replaced with a concrete pier and covering shed (observatory for posh ).  Replacing the wobbly tripod made a huge difference.

how does the concrete peir work? do you attach an EQ mount onto it? ive found that the mount itself is causing the vibration not the tripod

[riggers69]

Hi, i have a 127 nexstar which i think is essentially the same mount as yours but if you can find a cheap wooden tripod like i managed to find in this post

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/217520-upgraded-tripod-for-my-127-nexstar/

It has improved my veiwing no end, also it sets up higher too so less bending down and bad backs lol

Chris

[alan687]

Hi, i have a 127 nexstar which i think is essentially the same mount as yours but if you can find a cheap wooden tripod like i managed to find in this post

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/217520-upgraded-tripod-for-my-127-nexstar/

It has improved my veiwing no end, also it sets up higher too so less bending down and bad backs lol

Chris

Ive been doing a bit of research on mounts and tripods but seeing as i don't have £1000+ spare to go shopping i thought i should have a go at building one, i played around with a  dobson style mount but i was not happy with it. the best thing to do would be a pillar but there is no ideal place on my property to place it unless i go for a long walk to the bottom of the garden and it wouldn't be practical so i decided to build a portable pillar, ive made it only 20" high so it will be comfortable with a chair no more of that hunched over sore back stuff.

pics below are my progress so far should finish it today or tomorrow, as it is atm it is very stable i have the base board cut down and will add extra supports onto it but those pics will come later tonight

[alan687]

Base cut, supports added, sanded and first coat of paint. it has surprised me how stable this actually is, with this setup with some sand bags on the base its almost as good as a concrete pillar but we will see when i get it finished and the scope onto it

[alan687]

Finished Mount and a few pics of the moon

Pictures taken with a hi tech camera phone held up to the eyepiece by hand

[Lowen22]

That looks great, how have you got on with it so far? What would you say your overall spend was?

[alan687]

That looks great, how have you got on with it so far? What would you say your overall spend was?

overall spend was £0 lol just used what i had, it worked great reduced wobble greatly but lacked portability so i went back to the standard tripod, so what i gained in one area i lost in another.

new additions that were ordered today is a canon 700D, t ring and t adapter along with a 18 - 55mm lens and hood for photography. im going to have some practice with wide fov shots then try some with the telescope, because the mount isent motorized im limited to short exposures but i can stack them and it should be fine

a whole new adventure starts on Monday

[Lowjiber]

Now, that's a serious DIY pier.    Thanks for sharing the pictures too.

Clear Skies

[TiTanecd]

Doing something very similar to my 130EQ, making a wooden pier. I have a square fire pit and it will take a 1m x 1m sheet of wood over it, and then I am making the pier on top about 500mm high. So it will be much more solid than the legs when I'm at home and do some basic AP. 

[alan687]

no camera yet, have to wait till tomorrow

wooden piers are nicer in my opinion, quite a bit better to look at. i have a few 8"+ posts concreted into the ground and they are solid, sadly there holding up a gate not my telescope,

why is there so few wooden posts surely the cost would be similar to a concrete one

[alan687]

Its hear This thing is a beast

[alan687]

I ran into a few unforeseen problems when attaching the camera to the telescope

i had to use a barlow to get it to focus, not a big deal

it now sits very far away from the scope and i don't trust the adapters with the camera

the focus tube is very loose, it cant seem to cope with the weight

and finally the eq mount is way to wobbly to be of any use

So looks like im using the 18-55mm lens with the camera not the scope and it would probably be cheaper to buy a longer lens for the camera than fix all of the above

[richardalan]

Hi, I am getting one of these scopes tomorrow, second hand, to use as a grab and go scope. I wonder if its possible to modify the astromaster's eq head to attach to my HEQ5 tripod legs? That would make it a whole lot sturdier !

[alan687]

Hi, I am getting one of these scopes tomorrow, second hand, to use as a grab and go scope. I wonder if its possible to modify the astromaster's eq head to attach to my HEQ5 tripod legs? That would make it a whole lot sturdier !

its not the legs that's the problem, yes they do move but the actual mount is subpar, even when fully locked up and even overtightened there is a lot of movement.

the scope itself is a great scope and if i was buying it again i would get the scope separate and buy a better mount

[Gina]

Yes, that's what I found with mine.  As this was just a first step to greater things, having confirmed my love of astronomy, I saved up for what was the best amateur priced mount at the time (and still is for the price), the NEQ6.  Expensive for me but the right thing to do for imaging, which was what I was aiming for.  That made a tremendous difference and transformed that scope.  The next step was a concrete pier and full blown ROR observatory.

I too had the problem of the focal plane being too close to the scope with a DSLR and had planned to move the primary mirror up the tube but after a while with a Barlow ended up buying a new scope, a refractor, a Skywatcher Evostar 80ED Pro.  Great little scope.  Sorry that isn't much help to you.

[TiTanecd]

I ran into a few unforeseen problems when attaching the camera to the telescope

i had to use a barlow to get it to focus, not a big deal

it now sits very far away from the scope and i don't trust the adapters with the camera

the focus tube is very loose, it cant seem to cope with the weight

and finally the eq mount is way to wobbly to be of any use

So looks like im using the 18-55mm lens with the camera not the scope and it would probably be cheaper to buy a longer lens for the camera than fix all of the above

I have a 500D, and to cope with the weight I turn the scope so the camera is facing down, so directly over the centre. This also helps with the little motor, the weight isnt off to the side. its a bit more effort to find your object and centre in the camera but helps distribute the weight a bit better.

[scogyrd]

the focus tube is very loose, it cant seem to cope with the weight

I didn't rate the focuser on my 130eq, it struggled to cope with the weight of eyepieces imo, and I fixed it by removing the drawtube and sticking a strip of duct tape to it lengthways. This fitted very snug and eliminated practically all drawtube wobble. I don't know if this will be good enough for photography, it worked brilliantly for visual but it's a very cheap fix, it's simple and takes about 5 minutes to do.

Nice mount BTW.

[richardalan]

I did the same to mine as well ,took out the drawtube, used insulation tape 1 inch long and placed it around the top rim of the tube, then a tiny bit of thin lubrication. Now the focuser does not drop with my barlow in it. I also took off the small dovetail bar and replaced it with the spare 8" bar i got with my heq5. This makes it slightly more sturdy. There was also alot of play in the dec axis , so i took the weight bar off and stripped the declination axle off and gave it a good greasing and put it back together. Tightened the 3allen keys so there was no play in the shaft. Compared to my neighbours 127 powerseeker, there is a lot less movement now and the wobble time after touching the scope has reduced a lot. I am also going to try adding a weight under the eyepiece holder like alan687 did ! So now i have quite a decent 2nd hand grab n go scope for what i paid, and will be able to do much more observing now without the half hours set up time of the heq5pro!

[TiTanecd]

Think my 130EQ needs a service and some of these tips can help. With my xt8g coming, I can afford to fiddle a little more with this. Flock, grease and maybe if I have time get my uncle to machine some very very thin spider veins (he can machine metal to thickness of 0.1mm, thats too small but somewhere in the middle will work).

[Mto]

Here are links to a couple of mods I did on the AM130. I'm still working on and with the CG3 mount even though I purchased an EQ5 mount for it. By far the most effective mod for me was the Spidervane mod.

http://mtoastro.blogspot.fi/p/star-testing-astromaster-130.html

http://mtoastro.blogspot.fi/2011/10/focuser-project-on-going.html

http://mtoastro.blogspot.fi/2011/05/astromaster-130-pidervane-modification.html