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Travel setup ... with checked airline bag?


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6 minutes ago, Louis D said:

How much is the mount head alone?  You might be able to save considerable weight with an alternate tripod made from aluminum, wood, or carbon fiber.

I don't want to save weight, I have 2 Porta II's for that. I want solid and the AZ5 is solid but not to put on a plane, lol !

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58 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

The thread started out, I thought, about lite weight gear that could be carried on air flights as carry on ! Now its progressed to some pretty heavy (AZ5) gear that can't be stored other than in a hold of a plane. Maybe i'm wrong, I have misread something ?

My point was that the AZ5 mount head isn't all that heavy if you can mount it on a lightweight tripod.  I'm guessing it's sold with steel legs because that's the cheapest solid material to make legs from.  I've never heard of photography tripods made from steel, just aluminum and carbon fiber.  Wood used to be popular for photography and motion picture tripods.  I mention them because weight is generally an issue for location photography and filming, so these would make for good travel astronomy tripods as well.  If you need weight for stability, you can always hang weight from the center of the tripod.  It could be a gear bag, a trash bag filled with locally sourced rocks or sand, or anything else that can hung from a tripod.

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On 21/04/2023 at 11:06, Basementboy said:

But I'm wondering what kind of setup I could usefully take with me in my hold luggage on a plane. I'm going on a trip to Arizona in two weeks with a checked bag, and I'd love to have something more than a 3" frac along for the ride while out in the desert – and hopefully some quite dark skies.

Back on the original subject and OP, I would have started thinking about what to bring months in advance.  I was planning for months about what to bring to Nebraska for the 2017 eclipse.  At this point, you'll probably have to make do with whatever you've already got.

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1 minute ago, Louis D said:

My point was that the AZ5 mount head isn't all that heavy if you can mount it on a lightweight tripod.  I'm guessing it's sold with steel legs because that's the cheapest solid material to make legs from.  I've never heard of photography tripods made from steel, just aluminum and carbon fiber.  Wood used to be popular for photography and motion picture tripods.  I mention them because weight is generally an issue for location photography and filming, so these would make for good travel astronomy tripods as well.  If you need weight for stability, you can always hang weight from the center of the tripod.  It could be a gear bag, a trash bag filled with locally sourced rocks or sand, or anything else that can hung from a tripod.

From the point of view of carry on, as per the OP, what does all that mean ?  All that I am trying to say is that an AZ5 is not a carry on for a lite telescope, I believe the OP mentined they owned an AZ5.

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Right, so my original question was this:

Having seen many SGLers' carry-on travel setups (ie, everything carefully tucked into one cabin bag), what about a travel setup that also uses a larger suitcase, checked into the cargo hold of the plane?

The advice has been not to check any optics, but to carry the OTA in a cabin bag and check the tripod+mount. Seems wise.

The best OTA options seem to be a C5, a small frac or a small flextube Newtonian like the Heritage 150p (removed from its Dob base).

Given the long focal length of the C5, and the fact that I'm also a bit wary of how it will compare visually to the triplet refractor I'm used to; and given I don't want to invest in a sub-4" refractor (and can't afford a 4" Tak that could be dissambled into a cabin bag); I'm going to try the 150p. It's the biggest aperture (I'm desperate to finally go proper DSO hunting after years of staring at nothing in London), and it seems to collapse to somewhere between 41cm and 45cm depending what's measured (with a diametre of just under 20cm), which fits airline cabin bag dimensions.

The AZ5 is in discussion because I own one, yes.

I also own a carbon fibre tripod, a Manfrotto Carbon One 440. It's old so there isn't much info about it online, although I did see one site suggest it had a weight carrying capacity of 5kg (though that might refer to the photo mount, which I intend to remove in order to fit the AZ5). Weightwise, the 150p OTA and AZ5 plus diagonal+eyepiece combined probably come out to about 6-7kg so we'll see. But it's light, fits in a suitcase and has the benefit of existing at my house.

The 150p is in stock at FLO so as long as I can get my AZ5 <--> tripod connection sorted out, I should be able to get everything in my hands by midweek to test before my flight.

Thanks for everyone's advice! I'll report back. 

 

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Oh, lots of love for the binocular suggestions too! They would certainly be what I'd take if I only had a carry-on.

But I just can't miss the chance to point some decent aperture at actual desert air for once in my life. And if the plan is a bust on arrival ... well I'm sure I can buy a pair of bins at an Arizona gun shop :)

Wish me luck!

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Way back in 2019 I spent a long agonising over a travel setup. It was fun 😁 I settled on an 80mm refractor as I also wanted to do some white light Solar with it. I’ve been really happy with it. I’m I took it to the States last summer and finally got the final few Messiers I was missing. 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

This is my 'Greece' set up, hoping to get out there late September

Choice of scope and rig obviously depends on whether you are imaging or not. I'm 100% imaging and prefer to simply eyeball the night skies.

After a couple of years at this lark, I've settled on a wide FOV for a portable rig. This is much more forgiving if going largely manual with no go-to. 

Most of this goes in my backpack and carry on (10 kg allowance). Tripod, counterweights, anything 'club like' goes in checked luggage

Power from two 25,000 mA battery banks. I use 5.5V to 12V buck converters or a USB C PD cable set to deliver 12V. The Fornax draws hardly anything when tracking. The AAP and 533 MC camera less than 1 A.

The Samyang at f2.8 guzzles photons around 3 x faster than my Redcat, so I can shoot dual narrowband 3 minute exposures unguided if I choose, with the Fornax LT2 tracking at better than 1 arc sec over several minutes.

I polar align using the AAP and red dot/plate solve to find targets

This is quite under-sampled but I can live with that  

I have a guide scope but not sure if I'll use this yet.  I have manually dithered previously (every 5 frames) using the Dec axis adjustment on the repurposed SWSA 2 counterbalance arm and a panorama head on the RA axis. Bit of a fiddle but it works, just needs babysitting. I may use the guide scope and dither RA only, if I can get accurate PA

 

20230625-DSC_6024.thumb.jpg.14bcd54723f8a5baa099070a79ebb392.jpg

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My travel setup:

Long Perng 90, RACI50 finder, AZ-GTI,  AZT6, Artcise C60 tripod, Askar FMA 135, SLVs, Svbony 3-8 zoom, very light laptop, talentcell battery.

I am considering ways to use the Askar as a finder, but that means getting enough backfocus for an Amici prism.

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Ags, I use my Askar 180mm as a 40mm RACI finder.  It works perfectly with the supplied kit and a RACI prism and eyepiece.

The eyepiece I use is a  Svbony 20mm crosshair Erfle. It gives 9x magnification with a FOV of just under 8 degrees.

Edited by Second Time Around
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