My New Travel Scope!

[robbymain]

Hi All

Having finished putting together a travel setup I wanted to share it with you good people on here. I know lots of folk are interested in an airline-portable travel solution so here's my take on it!

The scope is a nice used William Optics Megrez 72 which only needed a little TLC - a quick dismantling, clean and reassemble plus some replacement of felt tape for getting a nice snug sliding fit for the dew shield (no lock screw on these older WO models).

The mount is a Vixen Porta 2 with the saddle clamp replaced with an ADM upgrade - it's much better engineered than the Vixen original and works extremely well with the scope's short fixed mounting foot/L-bracket.

The tripod is an aluminium Manfrotto 055 that I picked up new for a ridiculously low price before Xmas (25% discount from Wex plus £50 cashback from Manfrotto!!!)

To mount the Porta head on the tripod, I bought the Vixen photo tripod adapter plate only to find that the centre hole is a 1/4" thread - and the tripod legs have a 3/8" stud? So, I bought the required tools and drilled and tapped the hole myself to 3/8" and I'm happy with the result. Funny that Vixen don't offer both options?

Lastly, I drilled and tapped a new M5 hole in the scope for mounting the WO RDF in a sensible orientation - the provided position is correct for mounting the scope with the mounting foot/L-bracket underneath (suiting a camera/video-type tripod head, or a fork & cradle altaz mount like a Televue Sky-pod).

Currently it's shown with a WO 1.25" diagonal and a TV 32mm Plossl which might be replaced with a 2" one and a Hyperion Zoom before it's off to Tenerife for the February new moon (thats the plan anyway!)

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by robbymain
Can't type

[Frank the Troll]

Nice little setup Esp with the finder

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Frank the Troll

[paulastro]

Looks like a great grab and go and travel scope.  😀

[Ken82]

Looks excellent, what tripod are you using ? 

[robbymain]

51 minutes ago, Ken82 said:

Looks excellent, what tripod are you using ? 

It's a Manfrotto 055 Aluminium one - a chunk lighter and less bulky than the one supplied with the Porta 2

[Sky-J]

Great set up, hopefully you’ll get some amazing skies in Tenerife!

[Nakedgun]

Truly, grab-n-go.

[Stu]

A very nice looking setup which will be great under a dark sky I'm sure Robby. I've had lots of fun and success travelling with small refractors, so hope you have a good trip. If you don't have one, a good OIII and/or UHC filter would be worth it at some point for larger nebula such as the Veil when they are well positioned later in the year.

[Piero]

Looks great! .. and I second what Stu said above.

[robbymain]

On 23/01/2020 at 22:19, Sky-J said:

Great set up, hopefully you’ll get some amazing skies in Tenerife!

Righto Thats me off to to Tenerife on Tuesday - currently typing this with rain lashing against the patio doors here in Bristol so looking forward to some warm sunshine, and of course clear high altitude skies and DSOs 😃

I also booked onto the 'Teide By Night' excursion and considering visiting the Observatory - will report back!