the stability of the wedge

[hubble space telescope]

hello everyone

i have the cpc 1100 gps xlt sct telescope of celestron on ALT-AZ mount and im considering to buy the wedge, but i dont know if it is really help, if it is good like regular equatorial mounts and if it is stable? the telescope will not shake and move? and all of the weight of this system, the telescope the wedge and all the accessories will not interfere to the tracking?

thank you very much!

[MartinB]

Some years ago I used a wedge with an 8" Nexstar to enable long exposure imaging.  Initially I had the Celestron heavy duty wedge.  Whilst this supported the scope well enough the alt az adjustments for polar alignment were awful making it almost impossible to do an accurate drift alignment.  I eventually bought an APT wedge which was more solid and very easy to adjust for accurate PA.  I don't think think APT wedges are available now but believe the Milburn wedge to be of good quality.  The use of a wedge with your scope makes a lot of sense.  It is, however, a long focal length which is always a challenge.  Performance will ultimately come down to whether the gears are smooth enough.  My 8" Nexstar performed pretty well.

[brantuk]

I had the same wedge several years ago and it was a pain as Martin suggests above - awkward to use and almost impossible to align properly with my CPC800. When I got the CPC925 I upgraded to this one which is much more stable, easier to align and use, and supports the 925 very well:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/cpc-gps-series/celestron-hd-heavy-duty-pro-wedge.html

I've never used it with a CPC1100 but it is supposed to be able to support any of the CPC series scopes. Hth

[hubble space telescope]

thank you very much! it is seems that the wedge with the cpc 1100 is a good setup and i think i will buy it!

[ollypenrice]

Anna Morris uses a Millburn wedge and gets good results from it, as her images attest.

I had the Meade heavy duty wedge and it was abominable for the reasons described by Martin. Given that a workable wedge is very expensive I'd think carefully about your whole projected setup, ie camera, wedge and autoguider before spending. Do you have a camera which is going to work well at very long focal length? Would you use an off axis guider? (Much to be preferred at long FL.)

Olly

[Merlin66]

The Meade HD wedge, stripped and rebuilt ( filing and smoothing the joints, better stainless screws etc ) mounted on a cut down Meade HD tripod in an observatory worked very well with my LX200 12"

I used it successfully for spectroscopy for a few years.

 

[hubble space telescope]

thank you!