Scope Rotation

[Scotty27]

I have been out doing my first bit of viewing tonight (before the clouds appeared!).

I have not had chance to pratice polar allignment so it was pretty much point and view, I managed to get a great view of the orion nebula and then moved on to the brighter stars that were all in view from the finder scope.

When rotating to a new target on my EQ mount I had to keep loosening the Tube Rings and spining the scope to bring the eye piece back to a lower position - is this just something that has to be done or does it mean I am not rotating properly??

Cheers,

Scott.

[Whippy]

That's one of the downsides to using a newt on an EQ mount, the eyepiece does land in some odd places sometimes! So yes, you do have to rotate the scope to make it comfortable for you .

Tony..

[brantuk]

You can reduce the number of times you have to rotate it by viewing several objects in one area before moving to several in another area of sky. The only bugbear then is that you have to prepare a few lists for an evenings observing

[Scotty27]

You can reduce the number of times you have to rotate it by viewing several objects in one area before moving to several in another area of sky. The only bugbear then is that you have to prepare a few lists for an evenings observing

I think I will do that next time, it was a case of dodging the clouds too, so as certain areas of the sky were fading I had to spin to another.

On the plus side it gave me some practice moving around the axis' on my mount!

Thanks for the replys.

[malc-c]

One thing I discovered this evening was that having aligned the scope (two star via goto) the alignment would go out after a tube rotation, probably due to only loosening the rings slightly... It would be cool if the rings had bearings in them so you could easily rotate the tube and then lock it off

[NickMilner]

Can you get rotating rings? E.g. Something that would allow the OTA to freely rotate around the longitudinal axis without it slipping up or down and going out of balance? Quickly loosen it, spin it around then tighten it again.

/edit - lol, like what he said!

[brantuk]

Yes you can get rotating rings but they are very expensive. I have seen them but can't for the life of me remember where lol.

With clever use of a spare pair of normal rings tightened to the tube only (adjacent to the regular rings) you can sit the tube in the regular rings loose enough to spin. Line the regular rings with teflon to make it glide round. Hope that makes sense lol

[malc-c]

That sounds a good idea... Have to see if anyone has a spare set going...

[malc-c]

It's amazing what you can make using a few clamps and some garden edging !

Andy's Shot Glass - Wilson Rotating Rings - Astronomy & Astrophotography for Non-Gazillionaires

And Astro-baby's mod came up http://www.astro-baby.com/articles/rotating%20rings/Rotating%20Rings%20Project.htm