He really came yesterday and we did a collimation really quickly with my laser collimator. BTW, this telescope is really gorgeous! After the collimation we planned to test the optics on the stars but it clouded. We checked the weather forecast and figured out that it might be clear just some hundred meters higher so we decided to go to Bohor (that’s a hill very near where I live) and we had right! It was clear but windy night up there! The moon was rising and shining extremely bright. We could admire an “ocean” of the fog / clouds below in lowlands. It was incredibly beautiful.

Anyway the wind was too strong and I have a little cold so we stayed there just to take some photos and that was it. It was worth to drive half an hour just to admire the nature for some minutes.

View to the South-West. The brightest object is Venus. @ Primož Cigler, Nejc Ucman

View to South-East. The brightest object up-left is the Moon @ Nejc Ucman, Primož Cigler

We find fork equatorial mounts mostly in observatories since they are more often made for bigger telescopes and not-portable. The exception here are two the biggest manufactures of astronomy equipment: Celestron and Meade. Meade’s the most popular telescope – LX200 – has this type of mount. Nevertheless, the most common use of fork equatorial mount is in smaller to mid-size observatories – mostly professional.

The fork equatorial mount exists in rough from two parts: the base and a fork. Fork is attached to the base and enables moving from East to West (R. A. axis) whereas telescope is attached in the middle of the fork and allows us to navigate from North to South (Declination axis). The main advantage of the fork equatorial mount is that it doesn’t require meridian flip – that problem occurs at german equatorial mount when is passes the meridian and has to go 360° around or it stops slewing.

To conclude, fork equatorial mounts are mostly used in the observatories, they costs much and are heavy, accurate and not-portable.

I have worked several times with fork eq. mount but I don’t like it at all! I have german equatorial at my home and it suits me the best! For everyone who needs portable and reliable mount I advise german equatorial.

Thanks for reading!

Image source: Wikipedia.org

At German’s type of the mount we have two axis: one is parallel to the Earth’s rotate axis and another is rectangular to it. This is because when the mount is tracking there is no need to move both axis as the same time but just one. This makes those mounts so popular and useful because in theory you need just one motor to track the moving of the night sky. You also don’t get any other errors like field rotation or similar.

The axis which moves from east towards west is R. A. (Right Ascension) axis and the another one that enables us to move telescope from South to North is named Declination axis.

At this version of mount we need counterweights to balance the whole system. This procedure is very important to do it as precisely as possible because the better balanced mount slews better!

When setting-up we have to do everything in the right order to assure that in the end our mount tracks as precisely as possible:

1. Put the tripod to the flat and solid ground.
2. If you are using tripod make sure that the leg labelled with “N” (North) is positioned right to the North. Help yourself with a compass.
3. Attach the equatorial head to the tripod or pier.
4. If your mount has a polar finder check the time and a date, rotate the two wheels on the R. A. axis to the right date and time and check the position of Polaris (Northern Hemisphere) or the Southern Cross (Southern Hemisphere) in the polar scope and align the stars with the marked positions.
5. If necessary do a drift-align (the guide how to do it follows in the next posts).
6. Put a telescope on a mount.
7. Balance the whole system with counterweights and moving of the telescope tube.
8. Enjoy the good tracking!

That’s short review of the German equatorial mount. More read:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_mount
• http://starizona.com/acb/basics/equip_mounts_gem.aspx
• http://science.howstuffworks.com/telescope5.htm

Image source: http://www.company7.com/vixen/mounts/counterweights.html

Thanks for reading!

I believe that everybody understands what I mean.

However, this daily ritual of our home planet is not very appropriate for astrophotography. We need special mounts with tracking which tracks with just the same speed as the sky is moving. The Earth rotates quite slow so the stepper motors must track really slow and smooth to assure enough good tracking. All the bearings and gearwheels must be made very precisely to avoid any unpredictable jumps and so on. It is extremely important that we have a stable tripod or pier otherwise everything is worthless.

In general we three different types of mount: Alt-azimuth mount, German equatorial mount and Fork equatorial mount. All three has their advantages and disadvantages and every single of them I will describe in the following posts.

Stay tuned!