CN FORUMS ARCHIVE Telescope Reviews: Test Driving the Half Hitch Mount

A couple of weeks ago there was a posting on the CN refractors forum containing a user report for one of the current crop of 102ED refractors. Along with the report was a photo of the scope on an alt-az mount which I had not seen before, so I contacted the poster to inquire about the mount. It turned out to be the prototype for a new alt-az mount called the Half Hitch, which is being built by the same person who formerly offered the Lightspeed Wagon mount, which many forum members may recall. The Half Hitch mount is being built in Austin, TX, and since I was planning to be in Austin visiting my daughter and family over the Christmas holidays, I contacted Charles Riddell, the mount's designer, and made arrangements to examine and test drive the mount.

My grandson and I met Charles at Pedernales State Park, about 30 miles west of Austin, just before sundown last Friday. While my grandson unloaded and set up his Orion XT4.5, Charles explained the many features of the mount, which he had set up with a Stellarvue SV80ED (a.k.a. Nighthawk Next Generation) for demo purposes. At first glance the mount seems to be overly complex and "busy". However, after hearing Charles' description and giving it a try, I can say that every component on the mount is purely functional and extremely well thought-out. I have always been skeptical of slow-motion controls on alt-az mounts, but this is the first slo-mo system that makes sense. Not only does it make sense, it performs flawlessly. The slow-motion controls are actually precision friction drives, much like the focus knobs on a Feather Touch focuser – and they turn with the same buttery smooth motions. Manually tracking an object is a piece of cake with the friction slow motion controls because they impart no vibration into the system.

The Half Hitch uses pre-loaded ball and needle bearings on the altitude and azimuth axes rather than the Teflon friction bearings used on many other alt-az mounts. Once the scope is balanced, there is literally zero backlash when slewed manually or using the coarse or fine slo-mo controls. A clever caliper brake locks the altitude axis for changing eyepieces. There is also a quick release brake to remove all tension from the altitude axis to check the balance of the OTA, plus a means of adjusting the OTA vertically in the saddle to ensure that everything is right on the center of gravity. Charles said one of his beta-testers tried the mount with an NP-101 and binoviewers and reported no balance problems. Anyone who uses an alt-az mount with binoviewers knows what a true test that is.

The "Super" version of the Half Hatch comes with a Sky Commander DSC for push-to navigation, although other DSC's – Argo Navis, or the JMI/Tangent series, for instance, would presumably work just as well. However, because the Sky Commander is the standard DSC, the folding platform on the side of the mount is sized specifically for that unit. I should also mention that the encoders are well-integrated into the design, and the cables from the encoders are neatly dressed along one of the bracing ribs and practically invisible to the eye. The slo-mo controls come in handy when counting the DSC down to "0-0" as the object comes into view.

In actual use with the SV80ED the mount is rock-solid. The jitters normally found on a mount like this are practically non-existent. Damping time is one second or less. This is undoubtedly attributable to the rigidity of the mount itself, but the standard KB Systems ash tripod surely helps in this accord.

This is not, however, an inexpensive mount, especially when one considers that it designed primarily for 4" class and smaller refractors or 6" and smaller Maks and SCT's. Charles thinks it will handle short focal length 4.5" refractors like the WO 110 and SV115, but any thing larger would probably mean unacceptable levels of vibration. In all honesty, though, Charles clearly told me that this mount is designed specifically to be the premier grab-and-go platform for smaller refractors, and that he does not intend to compete with other mounts on a cost basis. He simply wants to offer the best possible mount for those who believe in the adage that you get what you pay for.

Jim