9 replies to this topic

[cuir]

For over a year and a half, I've been living on what is known as the Covey Hill. It is the hillside at the northern base of the Adirondacks, and have light-pollution-free southern views from my front porch. I have a few town lights around to annoy me, but, I can, on clear nights, see the Milkyway's trace in the sky when I'm carefull about avoiding the glare of the street lights. Such a setup pushes one to do a lot of front-porch peaking. Since I've been here, my trusty 80ED on a photo tripod was the weapon of choice, because the porch is too narrow to use an equatorial mount in a comfortable fashion.

Now, in comes the Skyview.


I took it out of the car, set it up, setup my 6" Mak, my 9x50, my diagonal and slipped in my favorite eyepiece, the 24mm Panoptic. I balanced the setup, and in less than 2 minutes, a step away from my kitchen door, I was set! So, here the usability low-down, from a two hour stint, with only one scope mounted, weighing in at around 13½ pounds total.

Pros:

Sturdy stainless legs.
Eazy to setup
Eazy to use.
Works well for no fuss sit-down observation.
Dampening time was impeccable at about one second. (see notes.)

Cons.

Stiction. Movement is not super-fluid, so nitpickers will have a field day whinning on this point.
No slow-mo controls. Not that it matters much to me, but it seems to be a recuring "want" on Alt-Az setups.
Tripod does not extend very high, so refractor users, beware. A 80ED is no problem, but meter-long refractors could be problematic without an extension pier of some sort.

Notes.

- I only had one scope mounted, dampening times will certainly vary when I add my 80ED to the setup.
- I was, as I mentioned, on a front porch, so for real, high powered view stability, and dampening times, I Will have to make some field tests before making a definitive comment on this point.
- This is a first impression, not an in depth review, and I'm writing this at a time long past my bedtime, so I'm not going to go any further on the subject.



My ratings: 8.3/10

Bang-for-the-buck: 9/10
Usability: 9/10
Fit and finish:7/10

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

[Luigi]

Whine, the sticktion is bad...whine, whine. It makes it very difficult to aim or track at higher powers, whine. Slo-mo would help with the sticktion. When I get some time I'll take it apart and see if I can do anything to reduce the schticktion. Other than that, I agree it's very stable with a 15 lb load and I'm going to try it with 15 lb on each side. I expect it will do well with that too.

[chboss]

There seems to be a clear difference between the "original" Alt-Az mount from AOK Swiss and the Chinese copy that is sold by Orion. Sticktion is a non issue on my swiss made AOK Ayo Alt-Az. That is also the reason that a slow-mo is not necessary even for high magnification viewing.

The problem on the Orion made Alt-Az reminds me a bit of the comparison between a Japanese made Vixen GP with the Synta line of GEM's. The Synta mounts are not bad but many people had problems with the grease used which was sticky...
I would certainly have a look inside to see what is causing the sticktion on your mounts, maybe it can be corrected.

Cheers
Chris

[jason_milani]

My original EZTouch has no sticktion problems. In fact, i sold my asstrotech Voyager (nice mount but not able to carry the load i wanted to put on it)and kept the EZtouch.

[Astrolabe]

Whine, the sticktion is bad...whine, whine. It makes it very difficult to aim or track at higher powers, whine. Slo-mo would help with the sticktion. When I get some time I'll take it apart and see if I can do anything to reduce the schticktion. Other than that, I agree it's very stable with a 15 lb load and I'm going to try it with 15 lb on each side. I expect it will do well with that too.

Hello Luigi

I bought the Skywatcher "SkyTee" mount which I suspect is the same as the one sold by Orion. Excellent and very stable mount for the money. Here in Sydney it costs one half of the WO equivalent. I have mounted a 6"-F5 Newtonian and/or a WO ZS105 refractor on it, several times and the mount performed very well especially in terms of vibration both when moving the tubes or when focusing at any magnification. However, I would have liked that the "stiction" to be less. I have another small problem with it and I am in the process of trying to resolve it with the retailer. I noticed that the left handside dovertail housing slips a bit in relation to the right handside one. The slip is similsr to that I experienced with a Vixen Portamount.
Have you or anyone else noticed a similar slip? If so how was it fixed?

Thanks and regards

George (astrolabe)
Sydney Australia

[cuir]

Well, tonight, I had not much of a sky, but time on my hands to wait it out between clouds. Luna is out, but so is Jupiter, gloriously glowing on my almost dark southern skyline.

Tonight, I loaded it up. I also got myself loaded in the process, but that's another matter. So, like I said, I had time on my hands, and used it to test the Skyview AZ fully loaded. the skywatcher 80ED is a small aperture scope, yet, it is still a load to be reckoned by mounts, as this scope is built using the same tube diameter as the 100mm scope. It is HEAVY, for an 80mm scope. On the other side, a real heavyweight from the cat alley, the 6" Maksutov, with it's 9x50 finder. With eyepieces and diagonals, I'm loaded at exactly 21.4 pounds in these pictures. This mount can take the load with eaze, and works well to dampen vibrations, even on my shaky wooden porch.



<-- Orange juice? Nah... Screwdriver. Happy, happy, joy, joy!


Edit: edited weight of setup from approximately 21 pounds to an exact measurement of 21.4 pounds, according to a premium digital scale.

[BlueMoon]

I wish Orion would sell just the head assembly. My tripod is identical to the one in your pic...

[EDIT] I sent Orion an email in regards to just purchasing the head. See what response I get...

[drshr]

I have just ordered this mount after reading the above. Hoping to mount a 6" refractor one side and an 80mm the other. The fact that it is handling the above loads with ease is encouraging. Hope you are right

[kaaikop]

Looks like a very nice, solid mount!
Congratulations & clear skies.

[nighthawk]

You can fix it by backing off the set screws and removing The dovetail saddle, under that is another set of three screws, if you tighten those up it may fix it. At least that worked for me.
Good luck