Jelly Wobble

[Kimboman]

Hi I recently  acquired  a Celestron 102 GT  telescope and goto mount .

The telescope is very good with clear bright images and the goto has the  mark 4+ handset with 40,000 objects although this scope will not see them all but works very well.

the only problem with this set up is the tripod mount Jelly wobble, I have an old aluminium theodolite tripod which is solid so I set to and modified it to carry the goto mount and scope.

What a difference at least an 80% improvement and a much higher adjustable platform.

This mount is also great for my Meade ETX 90 ota rock solid 

This  compliments my 6se goto,15x70 binoculars 10x 50 bins and lots of accumulated items 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Owners of SLT mounts will be interested in details of the conversion.

[Kimboman]

Hi   the tripod is a standard type of a theodolite flat toped tripod .

this tripod has a 65 mm diameter hole to receive the  base of the theodolite.

I cut a piece of 10mm aluminium that I obtained from my vast come in handy box( everyone should have one),drilled and tapped the 10mm aluminium plate to secure it to the tripod top  and I set out the dimension of the Celestron mount onto the plate.using 4mm set screws and drilled a 10mm hole dead centre for the new hold down screw which is one quarter BSW.

there are 3no locating nibs set at 120 degrees apart I marked the positions on the plate and drilled 3 no 5mm did blind holes to take the nibs this prevents the base from turning and allows the base of the goto to sit flush onto the tripod head.

I bent a piece of flat steel to bridge the 65 mm hole in the original tripod head and drilled an 8mm clearance hole to locate the one quarter BSW location bracket on the base of the goto base fortunately I had a  the correct size bolt withe a plastic thumbscrew to secure the goto to the tripod  

I fabricated a 2 mm aluminium bracket which I lined with base to carry the goto hand set on the tripod