Celestron astromaster AZ

[nightfisher]

Just throwing an idea out to the mass`s, would a celestron astromaster AZ mount work okay with an Optistar AR90s F5.6 just for low power work

[Knighty2112]

Probably. I have one up in the loft, so I’ll try my new small frac on it and see it it works Ok. If so the Opticstar should be Ok on it. 

[Knighty2112]

OK. Just tried my 66ED-R ‘frac on the AZ Mount I got with the Astromaster 70AZ scope which is languishing up in the loft now. The original dovetail attached to the ‘frac goes into the mount OK,  but I have another dovetail attached onto the original dovetail to stop it marking the dovetail which is then too tight for it to fit in, so the dovetail may or may not fit it depending on size. The one that doesn’t fit is slighly wider by about just over 1mm, and higher by around 1.5mm. If I remember the dovetail on my Opticstar I’m pretty sure it was not as chunky as the dovetail I have that doesn’t fit, but again you would have to test it. The only thing I would be warey of would be the balance of the scope as you move it around in altitude. My frac weighs in at 2.5kg and as long as I held on to the adjustment bar when altering the height of the scope it was OK, but the weight if I let go of the handle would make the ‘frac easily plummet either down or up. With extreme care you could use this mount I think, but you would always have to make sure it was locked in position before you took your hand off the altitude adjustment bar. The original scope on the mount was extremely light so this was less of a problem with the mount.

[nightfisher]

Gus, thanks for giving this a try, its not sounding such a good plan now for the Opticstar, might have to try and source yet another AZ4 head

[Alfian]

Jules, would an az3 not be sufficient for the opticstar? Should be able to pick one up cheap.

[nightfisher]

not sure if AZ3 would work for me

[nightfisher]

I think best thing would be to modify the EQ5 to work in AZ mode, its only a bit of filling