What would be a good EQ mount for a 4" refractor?

Any recommendations for a decent EQ mount for a small refractor? GOTO is
not important.

--
Mark Lepkowski
http://www.mcltunes.com

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Any recommendations for a decent EQ mount for a small refractor? GOTO is
not important.


Hi:

What's the focal ratio and how much can you spend?

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_
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What's the focal ratio and how much can you spend?

It's a f/4.9. I'd hope there'd be something decent in the $500-$1K range...

You should be able to find a nice used Vixen mount in that price
range. Either a Super Polaris or Great Polaris would be an excellent
choice. For $1000 or maybe slightly more you can find a good used
Losmandy G8. This one would even be suitable for Astrophotography.

For a bit less you can get a CG-5 or Meade LXD55 mount for around
$300. These would probably be OK but might require some work to make
them smoother.

scotty


On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 01:43:05 GMT, "Mark Lepkowski"
wrote:


What's the focal ratio and how much can you spend?

It's a f/4.9. I'd hope there'd be something decent in the $500-$1K range...

"Engineer Scott" wrote in message
...
You should be able to find a nice used Vixen mount in that price
range. Either a Super Polaris or Great Polaris would be an excellent
choice. For $1000 or maybe slightly more you can find a good used
Losmandy G8. This one would even be suitable for Astrophotography.

For a bit less you can get a CG-5 or Meade LXD55 mount for around
$300. These would probably be OK but might require some work to make
them smoother.

Thanks for the hints Scotty. What sort of work is involved in making them
smoother?

"Mark Lepkowski" wrote in message
...
"Engineer Scott" wrote in message
...
You should be able to find a nice used Vixen mount in that price
range. Either a Super Polaris or Great Polaris would be an excellent
choice. For $1000 or maybe slightly more you can find a good used
Losmandy G8. This one would even be suitable for Astrophotography.

For a bit less you can get a CG-5 or Meade LXD55 mount for around
$300. These would probably be OK but might require some work to make
them smoother.

Thanks for the hints Scotty. What sort of work is involved in making them
smoother?



Taking the mount apart, cleaning it, removing rough spots on the inside
metal surfaces, regreasing, re-assembling. It's all described here for the
CG-5:

http://www.astronomyboy.com/cg5/index.html

The LXD55 should be fairly similar.

Jeroen.

Go to LXD55.com. They perform these services for a fee (they call it a
Hypertune), and also sell a video to show you how to do it yourself if you
wish. I have bought the video, but haven't done the tune-up yet (or even
viewed the entire video). I have no problems with mine, except for the
sticky "glue-grease" that Meade uses, that makes it a bit stiff in cold
weather.

--
Dan Braasch

"Mark Lepkowski" wrote in message
...
"Engineer Scott" wrote in message
...
You should be able to find a nice used Vixen mount in that price
range. Either a Super Polaris or Great Polaris would be an excellent
choice. For $1000 or maybe slightly more you can find a good used
Losmandy G8. This one would even be suitable for Astrophotography.

For a bit less you can get a CG-5 or Meade LXD55 mount for around
$300. These would probably be OK but might require some work to make
them smoother.

Thanks for the hints Scotty. What sort of work is involved in making them
smoother?

"Mark Lepkowski" wrote in message ...
Any recommendations for a decent EQ mount for a small refractor? GOTO is
not important.

Hi Mark,

I use an Orion Skyview Pro with a 4" f9 refractor and it is a very
stable setup. I routinely use magnifications of greater than 200x
without any shakes. For visual purposes the tracking in RA has been
more than adequate and the motions are smooth.

Hope This Helps,

Steve

I use a Vixen GP with SS2K for my Vixen FL102S. Works great and I can
really manipulate it as needed, That is use it with just slo-mo if I
want and have no pwer avalable or tear it down and lube easily. It iis
really a mature working system. I used to have an Orion ST90 with the
vixen dovetail on it to mount for deepsky views with quick change
capability. Very versatile and stable mount.

Shady

Mark Lepkowski wrote:

Any recommendations for a decent EQ mount for a small refractor? GOTO is
not important.

I have used both a modified CG-5 and Super Polaris. There is absolutely no
contest. The CG-5 is still jerky and unstable, while the used SP is smooth
and solid as can be. Avoid the CG-5 if you can afford to.

"Mark Lepkowski" wrote in message
news
Any recommendations for a decent EQ mount for a small refractor? GOTO is
not important.

--
Mark Lepkowski
http://www.mcltunes.com

SPAMBLOCK: replace 'spam' with 'webmaster' and 'blackhole' with
'mcltunes'