Telescope Reviews: The Essence of Portable Stability: Voyager

Just returned from a few days in the mountains -- about a five-hour train ride from Delhi, in the foothills of the Himalayas. We stayed in a tent camp along a river, with mountains rising up from the river on both sides, and an open sky above. I took with my 120ST mounted on my new Astro-Tech Voyager. My first time out with this combination. I really like this mount for this scope, for all the reasons that have been addressed in other posts. The reach to the control knobs in easy with the short tube. It's exactly what I was hoping for in a portable mount for the 120ST. But that's not the whole of the story.

On the first night out, after about 30 minutes of warm up, showing off Saturn to other campers in the heavily moonlit, but clear evening sky, I noticed some gathering lightning over the mountain range protecting our western flank. Taking no chances, I quickly moved the telescope and mount back into our tent (a large, military-type tent for up to six people on a concrete floor), to wait out whatever was coming over the mountain range. I was thinking rain. I went back out to join everyone at the camp fire.

Five minutes later, we heard what sounded like a train, coming up-river, down the canyon. Camp staff immediately had the 30-or-so of us take cover in a concrete shelter used for kitchen staff, while ferocious winds tore through the camp taking a couple tents with them and flattening a few others. After twenty minutes the storm died down and we went out to survey the whole of the damage.

Luckily for us, our tent was still standing, though the sides had blown in with the winds, and the tables, chairs, and floor fan were knocked over and blown across the room with a few of our things.

And there it stood. The 120ST on the Astro-Tech Voyager mount, unmoved from the spot I had left it. Not even touched by a drop of rain.