Smallest EQ Mount With Setting Circles That Work

[Refractordude]

I use the EQ Nano with a 80 mm F/5 and it is stable enough to do basic AP. I have never used the setting circles, but it does have them. The only concern would be the length of your F/13 scope. ES does sell this with a 80mm F/11.5 scope but I think this will be prone to vibrations. Also, the Counter Weight that comes with the mount might not be enough for your scope.

You can fit a cheap Celestron R/A Single Axis Motor Drive on it with some bracket adaptation with a hand drill (see the drive thread below).


Or you could build a RA drive with a Stepper motor and Arduino for it.

Here is a link discussing the mount on CN
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6087 ... eq-thread/

and another one discussing RA drives on it.
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5702 ... his-mount/

Here it is in action as we speak for the transit of mercury...

Merci Beaucoup Thank you very much.

[SkyHiker]

Want something way smaller than my Orion Skyview Pro for darksite trips. I will be using my Vixen 70mm f/13. Would like to be able track with the mount.

Actually I added the Celestron motor to mine as well. With a bit of DIY tricks it's easy to add. What I found difficult is to get it to track at the right speed. Maybe I have to work a bit harder, once something works I get bored with it quickly.

I have a supermarket Venture scope that had a fitting counterweight, I added it to balance the 80 mm. So yes with pretty much any scope you need more counterweight than what it comes with.

[ARock]

Actually I added the Celestron motor to mine as well. With a bit of DIY tricks it's easy to add. What I found difficult is to get it to track at the right speed. Maybe I have to work a bit harder, once something works I get bored with it quickly.

Yeah, I had to tweak the tiny potentiometer on the Celestron Motor drive frequently as well. While this is not a big problem for visual, it is a mess if you want do short exposure AP.
A simple stepper/arduino drive solves that problem with the sidereal rate fixed in code. But mine takes a 12V input making it less portable than the Celestron drive with its included 9V battery.

I bought a set of Dob counterweights from ES which fits the shaft of the Exos Nano EQ
https://explorescientificusa.com/produc ... weight-set

[pakarinen]

So they advertise it as having a 15 pound load capy. Realistically, what do y'all think, 10 pounds maybe? MY ST120 is about 11 when loaded.

For $100 though, it might be a good experiment with my ST80.

[ARock]

I would not buy it for a ST120. Not only due to the weight, but also the moment arm due to the length of the OTA.
You could get it for the ST80 though and then experiment with the ST120 with unextended legs, stone bag tricks etc to see if you can tolerate the shakiness. On the CN thread people complain about shakiness during focusing for anything larger than a ST80.
If you can live with the shakiness, it is a very portable setup, compared to the next step up, which are the LX70, CG-4 kind of mounts.

It might also be interesting to see if you could put the mount on your TW1 tripod to see if it helps.