Saturn Ahoy!

[gareththegeek]

Last night was a little cloudy but we could see clear patches and since it looks like it'll be cloudy all week my wife and I decided to try and take a look at Saturn. The wind was knocking our scope around something fierce and at 45x and 72x all we could see of Saturn was a star and I thought that we were going to have the same failed experience we got when trying to view Mars. Then I tried out the Barlow taking us to 90x view and...WOW! You could actually see the rings! Mind blowing stuff!

My wife and I were literally jumping for joy in a darkened field in a virtual hurricane over seeing a tiny dancing blob - but unmistakably Saturn! Our view of Saturn only lasted a minute before the clouds rolled over but it was worth it.

We are now thinking of buying a better tripod for our scope to reduce the dancing and which can support a larger telescope if we buy one in future. I was taking a look at the Starwatcher EQ3 tripods which should be ok for a 6" scope in future, correct?

Is it possible to buy rings for our current scope which will let us mount it on this tripod, I measured the external cirumference (at the point it attaches to the current tripod) of the scope and calculated to diameter to be 73.2mm

Thanks,

G

[Rui]

Yes, an EQ3 can take a 6" reflector (not a 6" refractor...) without any problem.

Meanwhile, to reinforce the stability of your scope, there's a low-tech improvement.

It's quite simple: just find a way to attach a hook under the mount head (where the tripod's legs are fixed). Then, you can hang in that hook something heavy like a 5 liter bottle of water or just a plastic bag full of something. That's enough to reduce significantly the shaking of a small tripod.

By the way, You got hooked by Saturn? Just wait until you see Saturn next year, with the rings more open to our line of sight...

[gareththegeek]

Thanks, that's a good tip. I think the main problem however is the way that the scope is attached to the mount. It is held by two screws and the wind causes it to pivot, the is no counter weight so it tends to vibrate

Actually looking at mounts it seems that it is MUCH cheaper to buy a scope with a mount than to buy them separately so perhaps we should wait until we can buy both at once?

I can't seem to find any tube rings smaller than 90mm, do they exist?

[orionhunter]

yes they do. ive seen 80mm and 3 inch rings. however they seem to be very expensive for some reason.

far better to make your own, or get them made up. there are various methods of doing it.

ie

copy this idea.

[gareththegeek]

Thanks, but I think you may have overestimated my metalworking skills!

[orionhunter]

plywood?