Helios Quantum 6

[Wobbly Bob]

Hi folks, well I have joined the BIG BINS club a pair of 20/30/37 x 100mm Quantum 6s from uncle FLO. Unfortunatly they did not come with a fork mount, so I have been rumaging about in me photo tripod/head box and found an old Manfroto head with quick relaese plate. This will make do until I can come up with some sort of fork arrangement. I just happened to have a Manfrotto heavy tripod which can handle this load with no probs

First impressions, HEAVY, how one is supposed to cover these beasts in the neat little bag without DROPPING the bins obviously requires some practice. The objective caps are a joke, once one finaly gets them in place,they immediatly fall out again, had a look at some icecream tub lids, but hey were to small. Another little niggle is the lack of a finder, again another rumage in the bits boxes for some sort of mounting bracket.

Overall the general finish looks good, although the dew shields tend to grab when pulled or pushed into position.

Took them out into the back yard for a quick veiw, being surrounded by rooftops, i focussed in on a TV arial and the view was good and sharp. It doesnt lookgood for tonight, clouded out at the moment.

Will report back after some astro vewing.

[MarkF]

Yikes, heavy duty stuff, look forward to how they perform.

[kniclander]

you will absolutely love them. Open clusters will never be the same again. It is like you are falling into them. But they are heavy:icon_eek:

[ashworthacca]

Lovely, I'm sure you'll have many nights viewing pleasure with those.

[Jamie]

The viewing pro's out weigh the ergonomic con's....

These are great and like has been stated, open clusters won't be the same again....

[Wobbly Bob]

Dont leave anything laying about our house, when I am on the HUNT nothing is safe, you see I wanted to make an adaptor for an RDF, so I FOUND some suitable hard plastic from a curtain rail with a bit of sawring, filing and drilling I manage to make the adaptor. Yipee I will now be able to find what I am looking for.

Next, some sort of U bracket watch out Mrs Bob

[Wobbly Bob]

Update, the RDF works fine upto about 45 deg, then body contortions kick in to find an object .

For two days I pondered on how to make finding an object simpler to find. An Argo Nevis system came to mind But way to expensive for what I wanted. Then a master stroke of pure genius came to me, you see I discovered that ALT AZ coordinates would assist in finding an object and as it happend I have a WIXEY digital angle finder, Thats the Alt readout sorted, now for the Az. I had a look at the compnay that provided the WIXEY and found a (Remote angle sensor) which consists of the encoder which is connected to the readout (which is the same size as the WIXEY) by a cable, so I ordered one and it arrived this morning.

Now all I have to do is to fabricated a U bracket to fit all these little goodies onto.

I do not have access to Ali stock anymore, so will have to consider making one out of WOOD.

Will post some pics as the project progresses.

Bob

[Wobbly Bob]

Well I just wrote a long report on the new U bracket and observing double stars, LOST THE LOT

[yeti monster]

Well I just wrote a long report on the new U bracket and observing double stars, LOST THE LOT

Yeah, that seems to happen to me a lot..........

I guess the diagonals make regular target finding impossible with these beauties?

[MarkF]

Well I just wrote a long report on the new U bracket and observing double stars, LOST THE LOT

Whoops, if I get a problem like that I have gotten away with hitting back page and its still in cache then a quick CTRL+A and CTRL+C to get it on the clip board quick.

[Wobbly Bob]

Yeah, that seems to happen to me a lot..........

I guess the diagonals make regular target finding impossible with these beauties?

I did mention in the LOST REPORT that the whole rig worked perfectly, the tripod has a heavy duty rack and pinion for raising and lowering, plus the Bins were well balanced on the forks requirering little tension to fix position.

Finding an object was quite simple really because of the length of these beasts one can use the space between the tubes for rough siteing, I had a go at locating a few doubles, Alberio, Mizar and the double near Polaris. Good pinsharp stars through these bins and using the method described above, finding these was quite easy.

Overall I think this outfit is going to be used more than me scopes, so simple to set up and a joy to view through.

Bob

[yeti monster]

I could really use my BIG bins here, what with all the DSOs floating about above the rig.