Telescope Reviews: Celestron C8 on a Teegul Mount

My most frequently used scopes right now are my TMB105/650 and TMB92SS on a Lapides-modified Teegul mount on top of a Gitzo 1530 tripod. It's an expensive mount (and horribly expensive tripod), but the sub 1 second settling time is very impressive, especially when compared with about 2-3 seconds of the Teegul mount on a heavy-duty Bogen 3068 tripod.

The TMB fully loaded with a 2" EP easily tops 15lbs (with two finders, rings, diagonal etc.) and since my C8 OTA was only 12.5 lbs, I figured it would be worth putting it on the Teegul mount to see how it fared.

I ended up with the C8 fully loaded:
OTA, Agena 10:1 focusser and Vixen style rail: 14.45lbs
Laser finder: 0.42 lbs
60mm SV Finder: 1.82 lbs
Rigid Dew Shield: 1.23 lbs
2" Diagonal: 1.09 lbs
26T5 Eyepiece 1.63 lbs

Total: 20.64 lbs

Quite a load when you add it all up. So how well did it work? Well it worked surprisingly well. Setting time was just under 3 seconds - not great when I'm used to sub one second settling, but really not a major problem. I had the scope all the way forward, increasing the leverage on the mount - pushing it back and not using a dew shield would likely be a bit more stable.

The mount and tripod total about 12 lbs, so the total was just a bit over 30 lbs. Certainly, it's light enough to pick up all together and move out onto the deck and back.

I have an advantage of observing from locations that are free of any wind, so I don't know how much shake there would be in a light wind. It would be nice to have some kind of lever to move the scope around as the c8 is pretty short and not that convenient to push around.

I have used the C8 on a DISCMount DM6 and Ash tripod in the past. That combination is of course very sturdy, but it is also a lot heavier, some 2 1/2 times as heavy. And I am definitely a big fan of slow motion controls. So for me, I prefer this lightweight combination even though I sacrifice settling time to achieve it. I also haven't tried VSP's although the carbon-fibre tripod seems to sop up vibrations pretty effectively.

The Teegul mount is impressive with its carrying capacity. I would be interested in seeing this compared with the new Half-Hitch mount - a high end AltAz mount also with slow-motion controls.

It's definitely pushing this mount, but for those willing to trade some stability for weight, this is definitely a combination that works for me.

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