Sirui AM254 Carbon Fibre Tripod and SL200 Pillar used with small refractors.

[JAC51]

Sirui AM254 Carbon Fibre tripod and SL200 Pillar 

 

I bought this tripod to fit in a carry-on luggage for flying. At 44cm in length when fully retracted the tripod fits length ways into the standard wheelie type cases permitted in overhead lockers on flights from the UK. The carry bag that it comes with is much longer than the tripod and the empty end is simply folded over. I assume the carry bag is a common model also supplied with Siruis’s  larger tripods. There is also a bag containing screw in spikes to replace the rubber pads on the bottom of each leg as well as a hook to hang weights from the bottom of the tripod. The official payload is 12kg and the mount has both 1/4” and 3/8” connections which you change by simply unscrewing, flipping over and screwing back in again.

 

The tripod itself I weighed as 1040g. The SL200 pillar is 1” in diameter and 20cm in length and extends telescopically to almost double this (I have not done this in use) 

The tripods legs are in four sections  (3 extensions) which open cleanly  and lock easily with a half turn of a collar at the neck of each extension.

I tried the tripod out with both a Tak FS60 refractor and a Borg 76mm achromat. Both telescopes where used to look at the Sun with Baader Herschel prism and Morpheus eyepieces.  The mount used was a small Borg 3101 geared azimuth mount.

 

With the mount and the Borg 76mm the total mass on top of the pillar was about 3.5kg and very tail heavy.

Damping times with very hard tap on the end of the focuser of the Borg.

2 leg sections used (1 section pulled out) about 1 second (but looks unstable)

3 leg sections used ( 2 sections pulled out) about 3 seconds

4 leg sections used (3 sections pulled out) about 6 seconds

 

Damping times for Tak FS60CB     3 leg sections   2 seconds  4leg sections  3 seconds

 

Though for both in actually use better than above as I could happily use the gears on the mount to move the telescope which the settled quickly to allow me to see the target drifting across the field of view . Overall I’m pleased with it for small, shortish 60mm to 80mm refractors so much so that it has in effect replaced the Borg SLIK aluminium tripod which I originally used.