New Mount First Light: EQM-35 pro / Berlebach Uni. Sat June 1st 1145 to 0130.

[Captain Scarlet]

Having spent the last couple of weekends setting up my new mount (removing parallax from polarscope, collimating it to the mount’s RA axis, removing backlash from the RA axis, finding and marking Home Position and polarscope reticule clockface-position), Saturday night’s forecast was looking good to give it first light with my APM-LZOS 105/650.

As it turned out, clouds persisted the whole night, but there were enough moving gaps to make it worthwhile. This was my first time using a mount in Equatorial mode, so I took my time over polar alignment and 3-star alignment. I used my new £1.99 app as well: Polar Scope Align Pro.

Two or three weeks ago I tried to finish off a night with Mizar on my previous alt-az mount, but I couldn’t: it was too close to zenith. So this time I started with Mizar and admired it, its “B”, Alcor and Ludwig’s star. Unusually for me for this location, I could see Alcor quite easily with my naked eye, cloud-gaps permitting.

I tried next for M51, which I just about managed to detect with averted vision. The wisps of cloud moving across weren’t helping. I moved quickly on to M13, which was in a clear patch and much more gratifying: actually the best I’ve seen it from here, definite stars towards the edges rather than the dim lurking smudge I saw before.

I moved on to one of my favourite London targets, the Double-Double. My shortest eyepiece, the 6mm Delos gives me 108x on this scope, with which both doubles were easily split. I spent a few minutes on this, before deciding to shift a bit to Struve 2470 & 2474, the so-called “Double Double’s Double”, also in Lyra, and which I’ve only just found out about and never seen before. I needed to nip inside the house to check the SAO numbers (SAO67867 SAO67870 apparently).

When I came back out, having found out what to tell the Synscan to point at, guess what? The clouds had come to stay! Bah! I hung around for 15 minutes or so to no avail and packed up.

Still, I’m getting the measure of the new mount, it’s a good mate for the APM-LZOS, bring on more clear nights…

Cheers, Magnus

[Sanjio]

I've just dipped my toe into astro after about 39 years of thinking about it. Purchased an EQM-35... interested to understand a but more about how you set things up to remove backlash, collimating (the polar scope?), etc. To be honest it's still sitting in its box as purchased there weeks ago and it's still cloudy outside

Also noticed you mentioned using a Berlebach Uni... any particular reason? Cenmrtainky ooks interesting in terms if ability to pack down for storage. Did you have to purchase a specific adapter for the EQM mount?

Thanks

Sanj

Edited June 17, 2019 by Sanjio

[Kn4fty]

Thanks for posting the report and good luck on the sky clearing up!

Rob

[Space Hopper]

We'd love to see some photos of the 105/650 in action ! 😀

[Captain Scarlet]

11 hours ago, Sanjio said:

I've just dipped my toe into astro after about 39 years of thinking about it. Purchased an EQM-35... interested to understand a but more about how you set things up to remove backlash, collimating (the polar scope?), etc. To be honest it's still sitting in its box as purchased there weeks ago and it's still cloudy outside

Also noticed you mentioned using a Berlebach Uni... any particular reason? Cenmrtainky ooks interesting in terms if ability to pack down for storage. Did you have to purchase a specific adapter for the EQM mount?

Thanks

Sanj

Removing the backlash proved rather easy in the end. Each drive worm housing has 3 allen-key recesses on it, one tiny grubscrew in between two larger adjustment bolts. The technical term for what I did is, I think, "fiddling around". I loosened the grubscrew, wound in the two outer bolts a very small amount, re-tightened the grub and the backlash was gone. I read around a bit too to see how people had adjusted their EQ3-series mounts, to get a feel for how it all works.

Collimating the polar scope involved adjusting the position of the reticule until its centre-point stayed in the same place while I rotated the mount around the RA axis. The three tiny allen-grub screws for moving the reticule position are accessible even when the polar scope is screwed in. There's no end of advice on this and other forums showing how to do the adjustments. The only thing I would re-iterate is to make the adjustment allen-key turns in very small increments.

The Berlebach tripod is there as much for its looks as its function. Functionally, it's much less awkward to micro-adjust for levelling than the SW tripod. Also, it turns a scope on its mount into a thing of beauty, sufficient to pass the acceptable-to-my-wife test, free-standing in the living room. I find the standard steel-tube Skywatcher tripods rather ugly, and question the design of screwing the spreader plate against its stops very close to the hinges, introducing more and more energy into a quite springy system. The Berlebach has a spread-stopper, as opposed to a spreader. When ordering a Berlebach, one of the options is to specify what head you want, and the one I got was an EQ5-style head, which is compatible with EQ3 series mounts. I also have an AZ-EQ6 mount, and that sits on a Berlebach Planet, again beautiful.

Good luck with your Mount and your renewed interest; I hope you get to use it before too long!

Cheers, Magnus

 

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, Tubby Bear said:

We'd love to see some photos of the 105/650 in action ! 😀

I'll add some before too long ... I'll also recount my attempt to replace the highly unusual finder-shoe with something more universal.

[Sanjio]

2 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Removing the backlash proved rather easy in the end. Each drive worm housing has 3 allen-key recesses on it, one tiny grubscrew in between two larger adjustment bolts. The technical term for what I did is, I think, "fiddling around". I loosened the grubscrew, wound in the two outer bolts a very small amount, re-tightened the grub and the backlash was gone. I read around a bit too to see how people had adjusted their EQ3-series mounts, to get a feel for how it all works.

Collimating the polar scope involved adjusting the position of the reticule until its centre-point stayed in the same place while I rotated the mount around the RA axis. The three tiny allen-grub screws for moving the reticule position are accessible even when the polar scope is screwed in. There's no end of advice on this and other forums showing how to do the adjustments. The only thing I would re-iterate is to make the adjustment allen-key turns in very small increments.

The Berlebach tripod is there as much for its looks as its function. Functionally, it's much less awkward to micro-adjust for levelling than the SW tripod. Also, it turns a scope on its mount into a thing of beauty, sufficient to pass the acceptable-to-my-wife test, free-standing in the living room. I find the standard steel-tube Skywatcher tripods rather ugly, and question the design of screwing the spreader plate against its stops very close to the hinges, introducing more and more energy into a quite springy system. The Berlebach has a spread-stopper, as opposed to a spreader. When ordering a Berlebach, one of the options is to specify what head you want, and the one I got was an EQ5-style head, which is compatible with EQ3 series mounts. I also have an AZ-EQ6 mount, and that sits on a Berlebach Planet, again beautiful.

Good luck with your Mount and your renewed interest; I hope you get to use it before too long!

Cheers, Magnus

 

Thanks very much!

Very helpful indeed

 

I'm quite tempted by the berlebach... question is Uni or Planet.. do you find the uni stable enough for imaging?

[Captain Scarlet]

28 minutes ago, Sanjio said:

I'm quite tempted by the berlebach... question is Uni or Planet.. do you find the uni stable enough for imaging?

Although I have occasionally stuck a camera on a mount and taken the odd picture, I'm no imager, so can't comment on that. All I can say is that the EQM-35 is specifically aimed at imagers. Which begs the question, why did I get it? The answer is that it's small enough to be reasonably portable from living room to patio, and has a 10kg payload capacity.

Uni vs Planet. Uni, with its 60kg ability, is an appropriate match to the EQM-35. But the Planet. It's a monster. I knew it was going to be big, but I wasn't prepared for just how big. If you're going to upgrade to an EQ6-series mount, then the Planet will cope, but it's way over the top for just an EQM-35.

Herewith my Planet "in the field" with an AZ-EQ6, my mak180 and my 12" newt...

[Sanjio]

3 hours ago, Captain Magenta said:

Although I have occasionally stuck a camera on a mount and taken the odd picture, I'm no imager, so can't comment on that. All I can say is that the EQM-35 is specifically aimed at imagers. Which begs the question, why did I get it? The answer is that it's small enough to be reasonably portable from living room to patio, and has a 10kg payload capacity.

Uni vs Planet. Uni, with its 60kg ability, is an appropriate match to the EQM-35. But the Planet. It's a monster. I knew it was going to be big, but I wasn't prepared for just how big. If you're going to upgrade to an EQ6-series mount, then the Planet will cope, but it's way over the top for just an EQM-35.

Herewith my Planet "in the field" with an AZ-EQ6, my mak180 and my 12" newt...

Wow, everything is big in that setup!