350D does the Milky Way

I was thinking of buying an inexpensive setup like that, but wasn't sure if that little mount was good enough... do you think that small thing is really sturdy enough to mount an XT with a small zoom lens?

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Terence
http://www.pbase.com/auriga_m38

Thanks and sorry for hijacking the thread Kiwi Man.

As to the EQ5 on a photo tripod... well, that's pretty much my setup at home. I've owned fairly big scopes in the past and have noticed that the tripod legs are definitely the weakest link in a scope setup, especially the factory supplied ones.

However... I had bought a chinese made carbon fiber tripod to carry around when hiking. For the telescope part, I use the head (the part without the tripod, for non astr folks) from a nexstar80gt, which is very small and lightweight, and has got (computer controlled to automatically find and track celestial objects). All together the setup weighs about 8lbs, not too bad for hiking.

I also own an lxd55 mount, which is the Meade version of the EQ5, and pretty much the same size and weight. As a lark, I took the head off the tripod and mounted it to the tripod in place of the center column, just to test how stable the tripod is with a heavy load. To my amazement, that setup was much more stable than the tripod I was using with the mount! That was a shock to me, but convinced me that a decent photo tripod is a pretty stable beast. So now, I use the lxd55/photo tripod setup at home with great results not only for deep sky shots, but for planetary work as well. The latest shots in my astro gallery (from the past couple of months or so) were done with that setup.

Ok, nuff blabber and again sorry for hijacking the thread. If there is interest, I can post some pics of my setup using the photo tripod and my scope. That is, if it's ok with you to post them in your thread.

Thanks again for the beautiful pic.

Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

Auriga said:

I was thinking of buying an inexpensive setup like that, but wasn't
sure if that little mount was good enough... do you think that
small thing is really sturdy enough to mount an XT with a small
zoom lens?

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Terence
http://www.pbase.com/auriga_m38

Click to expand...

I belong to a few astro forums and folks have regularly taken their dslr's on trips and used that little mount with great results. It's actually quite sturdy if you don't overload it with a big lens (forget the Bigma or the 200mm f/2.8). Keep the lens weight at around 1lb or so max and you should be ok.

Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

Awesome pic Al, you guys make me jealous of your dark skies. Indeed, you can take fairly short exposures with wide lenses (especially fast ones). I tried it with the kit lens and it's a bit too slow and not wide enough for 30 sec shots, so it had too much star trailing.

Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

Thanks for the info! I think I'm going to pick up this setup and head for the country...

thanks again!

I emailed Orion about it that. They said it supports a DSLR no problem with standard lenses. They said it wouldn't fit on a camera tripod.

dciobota said:

Thanks and sorry for hijacking the thread Kiwi Man.

Click to expand...

Don't be silly... you don't need to apologise for anything. Part of the reason starting this thread was to generate some discussion about astrophotography. Yours was a good post.

dciobota said:

Ok, nuff blabber and again sorry for hijacking the thread. If
there is interest, I can post some pics of my setup using the photo
tripod and my scope. That is, if it's ok with you to post them in
your thread.

Click to expand...

I find that very interesting that it was more stable on a good camera tripod.! I would like to see some pic of it, thanks.

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If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

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Robert (Phoenix, AZ)
DSC-S70 --> DSC-V1 --> DSC-H1.

Lots of stuff is going on up there. Nebula, different coloured stars and huge amounts of dust, among other things.

See this... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990224.html

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If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

Ahh that's odd, I was 100% sure you could fit it on a camera tripod. I'll ask in the astro forums and do some research on this. Stay tuned.

Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

I think you better find a Dom Quixote to fight them away
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Andre

Thanks Kiwi man, I very much appreciate it.

Sorry for the delay, life gets in the way of the hobby sometimes. ;-)

Here is a picture of the LXD55 mount on the photo tripod, with the scope attached. Not a large setup by any means, but the tripod does the job very well.



Here is my grab and go setup, a Nexstar80GT mount head on the same tripod. The tripod weighs about 5lbs, the mount head about 4lbs. Very easy to stow in a backpack. The scope is actually bulkier than both of these two, even though it only weighs about 6lbs. But the nicest thing is the goto capability, I usually get lost at a dark site with so many stars.



Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

Ok, for those of you interested in mounting that little mount on a photo tripod.

One of the folks that has one replied to my post and mentioned that the little tripod that comes with the mount can be unscrewed. Aparently the mount takes a 3/8" photo tripod bolt (most common), so it's a direct for to almost all the tripods except perhaps the smallest ones that have the 1/4" bolt. The tripod I have has the 3/8" bolt.

Hope this helps.

Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

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If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

beautiful

Not sure why those links don't show, so I uploaded the pics to my pbase account. Here are the lnew links, hope these work:

lxd55 and photo tripod:



Nexstar80GT on photo tripod:



Let me know if these work.

Thanks again,

Daniel

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http://www.pbase.com/dciobota

Cool... they look good together.

Thanks.

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If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?

I live in Invercargill and have a 350d canon. My husband is interested in all things 'space' - has been all his life. We now have the means to think about him getting a telescope (the son in Oz did last Christmas). Are you able to tell me/give me details of where you got your telescope and other bits and pieces?

We would appreciate that.

Cheers

Hay Kiwi2

fellow Kiwi here, where in this wonder lad of the long white cloud do you live?

Very nice! thanks for sharing. I had tried some with a 50mm f1.4 without tracking and found it was hard to even focus well.