Choosing between 4" ED Refractors for visual

[quasar117]

8 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Have you thought about an EQ mount? i have used a Vixen GP mount for years now and I will be buried with it. If you can find on used by chance I wouldn’t hesitate for a second, they’re quite common even though they are old. They can be had used for well under your budget, they are tanks, mine held my 115mm triplet without issue, i now use for my Lunt 60.

Lovely mount! There's one on ABS for £300 at the moment is that a good price?

Also would depend if it fits on my uni28 base. 

Do you know the distance from the center of the fixing rod to the center of the azimuth pin?

[dweller25]

@quasar117

The Vixen GP has a 60mm snout fitting.

I use mine on a UNI28 with the 60mm recess fitting.

[Naughty Neal]

I    upgraded both saddles on the skytee 2 with a ADM 150mm on offer from flo and a 150mm RVO model form RVO, the cheaper  RVO only has one beefy central tightening knob but does have dual end springs .  The RVO saddle takes and holds my Scopetech F12.5 frac with no issues.

[John]

I've had the Vixen GP and GP-DX - they both fit fine onto an EQ5 / HEQ5 compatible tripod hub, including the Berlebach Uni 28. 

With my (older) Skytee II I replaced the saddles with ADM twin screw versions. I had an early version of the Skytee II on loan for testing and the stock saddles were poor on that. A little after this photo was taken I found that the stock saddle used was in a poor state already. I was lucky that the scope (6 inch F/8 refractor) didn't take a tumble 😬

 

Edited February 27 by John

[quasar117]

Good to know that it would fit then thanks.

For visual use do you bother leveling the mount and accurately polar aligning with the polar scope or is it good enough to pointing roughly at Polaris?

Does £250 for a Vixen GP sound reasonable?

[dweller25]

1 hour ago, quasar117 said:

Good to know that it would fit then thanks.

For visual use do you bother leveling the mount and accurately polar aligning with the polar scope or is it good enough to pointing roughly at Polaris?

Does £250 for a Vixen GP sound reasonable?

For visual I set the latitude scale as accurately as possible, then use a compass to point it to true north - which for my location is about 2’ from magnetic north.

Then I level it up and I am ready to go - may need to make small adjustments every 10 minutes.

£250 sounds about right.

[RobertI]

@quasar117 AZ4 head for sale if of interest 

 

[quasar117]

1 hour ago, RobertI said:

@quasar117 AZ4 head for sale if of interest 

 

Thanks.

Unfortunately I can't see the ad though as I don't have permission to access the classified ads yet

How much is it on for please?

[quasar117]

2 hours ago, dweller25 said:

For visual I set the latitude scale as accurately as possible, then use a compass to point it to true north - which for my location is about 2’ from magnetic north.

Then I level it up and I am ready to go - may need to make small adjustments every 10 minutes.

£250 sounds about right.

Is it beneficial or worth it to use an EQ mount over Alt Az  for visual? 

I suppose once set up tracks is a lots easier as you only really need to adjust the RA slomo.

[Stu]

Chaps, no buying or selling outside the Buy/sell forum please.

Quasar117 has enough posts to see the section I think, though may need a month’s membership aswell as the post count. 

[quasar117]

22 minutes ago, Stu said:

Chaps, no buying or selling outside the Buy/sell forum please.

Quasar117 has enough posts to see the section I think, though may need a month’s membership aswell as the post count. 

My apologies.

It's still not available for me yet. Like you say, I believe I have to have been on a month.

[lvan]

41 minutes ago, quasar117 said:

Is it beneficial or worth it to use an EQ mount over Alt Az  for visual? 

I suppose once set up tracks is a lots easier as you only really need to adjust the RA slomo.

On a manual mount I prefer EQ for moon and planets due to higher mags. I believe you can convert an EQ5 style mount to Alt Az so you’d have the benefit of both.

[John]

I use alt-az mounts now in preference to anything else because of their sheer simplicity of setup an operation. I'm happy to deal with tracking manually, finding stuff for myself etc, etc in return for that.

Others will make other judgements though and thats fine of course 🙂

[Mr Spock]

I'm completely the opposite. I need EQ tracking and can't do with the faff of constantly moving a scope manually. I like to just sit at the eyepiece and observe.

[Moonlit Night]

AZ all the way for me, I could never get on with EQ mounts at all. Certainly AZ are far easier and less intimidating than EQ mounts for beginners. I do appreciate if tracking for AP is required they really are the way to go. Luckily for me I have zero interest in AP. 
 

what ever you buy, get the best quality you can, much cheaper in the end. You are going to love your scope btw. Everyone loves them.

Edited February 27 by Moonlit Night

[Moonlit Night]

Anyway, 9 pages in are you any closer to making a decision? BST/Starguiders are another good call as far as eps are concerned. Excellent value.

[Naughty Neal]

Alt/Az here as well  with my fracs on the skytee 2, I can sit and use  the extended longer flexi controls whilst sitting at the eyepiece.

For my longer flexi's , I bought a used 6mm strimmer drive cable off ebay for about  £11 which has sq drive on two ends, cut the cable to length and dremel a sq end on the cut end. Cover the flexi cable with heat shrink for a nice finish and a couple of brass 6mm straight couplers.

 

Edited February 27 by Naughty Neal

[bosun21]

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

I'm completely the opposite. I need EQ tracking and can't do with the faff of constantly moving a scope manually. I like to just sit at the eyepiece and observe.

Same here.

[Ratlet]

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

I'm completely the opposite. I need EQ tracking and can't do with the faff of constantly moving a scope manually. I like to just sit at the eyepiece and observe.

I like slo mo when using my 130pds newt.  It's all just in front of you and it's like giving the scope a cuddle.  Tried it with the refractor today and it was less fun.  Going to try taking out the gem28 later if it's still clear.  See how I get on with that.

[bosun21]

I'm in the EQ camp, always driven or full go to. The only scope I have that is Alt/Az is my 250mm dob and that is also go to. I tried buying a Skytee but quickly sold it on as Iike Michael i couldn't be doing with the faff of manually tracking especially in both axis. I cut my astro teeth on EQ mounts which undoubtedly plays a large part in my preference.

[dweller25]

I like both EQ and Alt-Az 

EQ so I can draw at the eyepiece.

Alt-Az lets me get out and observe really quickly with no fuss.

Edited February 28 by dweller25

[RobertI]

4 hours ago, quasar117 said:

My apologies.

It's still not available for me yet. Like you say, I believe I have to have been on a month.

No it was my bad, I wasn’t thinking. 

[Mr Spock]

13 hours ago, dweller25 said:

Alt-Az lets me get out and observe really quickly with no fuss.

I don't understand that. I just plonk my mount down, attach the scope, and switch it on. Where's the fuss? The fuss is then having to constantly touch manual controls or worse.

[mikeDnight]

I too think that equatorial's are the easiest thing in the world to use. They make tracking something at least half the hassle, as even if you don't use electric drives, you've only one knob to turn instead of two. And contrary to popular belief, you can sweep the sky with them, even around the pole! But there's also something really relaxing about the quiet tick of the motor as it tracks, that isn't there with the majority of altazimuth mounts. They're a sketches dream!

Edited February 28 by mikeDnight

[Saganite]

A driven AZ100 is equally fuss free, you just plonk it down, point it South with the tube level and switch it on....🙂