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Pop quiz: Best and worst mounts you ever used


iPeace

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I have only tried 2 mounts on 1 telescope.

Worst: Feisol carbon photo tripod with video head. The video head was not strong enough to carry my 5" MAK when it was pointed higher up on the sky. It also didn't have slow motion controls. It is capable for carrying the scope horizontal (daytime viewing), but also then the lack of slow motion controls is problematic. I had to cope with this mount for a while, as I imported the scope and the mount separately for tax reasons.

Best: EQ3-2, which is suitable for my scope. Although it is not perfect. Something still wobbles a little bit. Could be the mount, could also be the terrace itself. It think it is both.

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37 minutes ago, Stu said:

The alt az mounts from early 60mm long focal length scopes seem to be good contenders for the worst though!

Could this phenomenon be in any way responsible for a general perception (assuming it exists) that any serious astronomy requires an EQ mount?

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6 minutes ago, iPeace said:

Could this phenomenon be in any way responsible for a general perception (assuming it exists) that any serious astronomy requires an EQ mount?

I don't think there is any such perception other than those partaking in astrophotography

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Best = Celestron/Losmandy G11. (Better than Losmandy's own G11 design though that also is excellent, though motors are vulnerable when passing the meridian).

Worst = Vixen Porta Mount.  (Every Porta Mount and Porta ll mount I've ever used has had more vibration than a tuning fork. Utter junk!) Vixen hit rock bottom with this one.

Mike

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On 20/02/2016 at 22:00, Stu said:

The alt az mounts from early 60mm long focal length scopes seem to be good contenders for the worst though!

I totally agree with Stu, with one rare exception, the Zeiss T-Mount, which functions as " both" an equatorial and a superb Alt-Az mount.

PICT0001 (Medium).JPG

Zeiss T-Mount.JPG

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On 23/02/2016 at 06:49, Paul73 said:

Thanks Mike

I was thinking of getting a Porta Mount. Won't now!.....

 

This underlines Peter Drews point though - I really enjoyed the Porta Mount that I used to have my Vixen ED102SS on. The only thing that I changed on it were the slow-motion control knobs which were originally plastic and I replaced them with CNC machined ones.

 

 

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The Porta Mount's weak point is its tripod - bung it on a Hal 130 or Berlebach and it turns all lovely. 

The worst mount I've ever had was the yolk one that came with my beloved Tasco as a kid, but as a kid I didn't care. The best one....I have been impressed with my AZ EQ5 but it's probably one I made at my previous house. I had high walls around the garden, so I built a sort of treehouse through which I placed a sawn-off telegraph pole. This was tensioned with wire and turnbuckles and an eq mount head secured to a plate on the top....just a glorified pier and deck really, but it was good and fun homemade. Unfortunately I lived nextdoor to the Dingles though who, as soon as they saw this, left their farmyards bright orange sodium lamps on all night because they were inbred morons. 

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