Celestron AVX Dual saddle plate issue with 7" Mak

[alex_stars]

Hi All,

I thought I report on an issue I recently faced with my Celestron AVX mount that features the new dual saddle plate. The plate takes two standards of dovetails, the narrow CG-5 dovetails and wider CGE. Most people know the CG-5 as a "Vixen Style" dovetail and the CGE is Celestron's version of a 3" (but not compatible with a Losmandy) dovetail.

Now the issue. I own a 7" Mak (Skymax 180 from SW) which has a classical Vixen-Style dovetail. When you try to clamp the 7" Mak to the AVX, the saddle plate clamp does not really fit.  Interestingly the 7" Mak has too large of a diameter to fit the AVX saddle, which comes to a surprise, given that a C8 or a C9.25 are popular choices for that mount.

 

As you can see on image, on the left side, the clamp rests on the OTA and the dovetail does not touch the clamp on the bottom. When you tighten the fixing screws, tension is built up between the clamp and the OTA and not between the clamp and the dovetail. In addition this makes it quite harder to balance the OTA on the mount (the clamp-tube jams). In the end the OTA will get a dent at that location, I guess. Luckily I caught this right a way and my OTA is not yet damaged.

Anyhow for some this might not be an issue, but I changed the AVX clamp and now use an aftermarket clamp from ADM.

Thought I share this with the community as this might be interesting for some.

Clear skies

Alex

Edited August 2, 2020 by alex_stars