How much to I love the iOptron Mini Tower/GOTONOVA system? I am enamored enough to just keep pushing the envelope to new extremes. My latest adventure has taken a bit of time. I’ve been putting in only a few minutes here and there for months just to show how well this system really works. Last night, we had our first tests and it is really quite interesting. However, perhaps I should go back to the beginning of this crazy idea.

I number of years ago I purchased a Gemini Instruments GI-1 German Equatorial Mount. It was the predecessor to the now infamous Gemini mounts made under the Losmandy name by Hollywood General Machining, Inc. It was made by a young fellow who was still in high school and was a top shelf machinist already. Only six or seven of these seem to have been made and I have serial number six.

Gemini Instruments GI-1

The over all design and machining were absolutely fantastic. The down side to this mount was that the gears and drive system where horrible. The gears were apparently made by someone with very either poor facilities or no experience in making gears. I have not been able to determine which was true. Also, it is possible that another owner may have tried to lap the gears and did some severe damage to the worm wheels and worm gears as a result of their efforts. Again, it may just be that these parts were of poor quality in the beginning. I have not been able to find out much about the early history of the mount.

Worn out worm gear

I had purchased the mount to use with my 1965 Jeagers 6” f/15 refractor. The GI-1 was a nicely updated version of my venerable DS-16 which was the work horse for this scope. I just wanted to move into the GOTO arena and thought this would do the trick. I was wrong.

6 inch f/15 on DS-16 GEM

The GOTO system that was installed was an old Meade Autostar system from a DS series mount. Now, everyone knows that I think very little of Meade or their electronics. I will admit that many of their optics are quite good and that the mounts are built like a tank, mechanically speaking. However, the quality of the electronics and the rather limited abilities of the Autostar system leave me cold as a New Hampshire winter night. In addition, they appear to not care one bit about serving the people who have purchased their products. If you need ANY service what so ever, you must send the entire scope, mount and all, back to them, AT YOUR EXPENSE, then pay an outlandish amount of money up front and then pay for return shipping. In addition, the lead time on just about ANY repair is nothing less than four months and commonly well over six months! In fact, it is not, according to some of my reading, uncommon for them to completely LOSE the telescope for months at a time. Meade flat out refuses to sell ANY SERVICE PARTS AT ALL to the end user and they have now stopped supplying most of their dealers, too. That folks is a horrible slap in the face to anyone who buys their product and is one of the main reasons that I will NEVER buy or sell as a dealer any of their products.

Anyway, the problem with the mount was that the gears were trashed and the Autostar system just plain sucked. It was nothing but a nightmare to use. IF and when that POS DID work it didn’t do well or for long. So, one night, my temper succumbed to the frustration of the Autostar crashing again and I took a 5 pound hammer to the controller!! Oh did I even enjoy watching those parts fly! Hey! Maybe Meade could get out of financial straits by taking their stuff to county fares and letting people whack at them with a sledge hammer for a buck a throw! I’d be one of the first to step up in line!

So, after I made star dust out of the Autostar controller, the mount was packed up and forgotten until I found it in the pile of stuff that followed me to Florida. I haven’t needed or had any interest in a GEM since the Mini Tower was shown to work just fine in such a configuration. I didn’t have any of my big refractors ready for use and was kind of starting to miss them. After all, what gets the most attention at any star party? Yes, some of the monster DOBs can draw a crowd, but, when it’s John Q. Public coming up and they see something like a BIG refractor standing in front of them, then they see a REAL TELESCOPE! Those are the kind of telescope that they equate with big observatories and stuff. Down here in Florida I have yet to see even ONE larger refractor. All I see are these little short tube things that just don’t have the psychological impact of a big “real” telescope. That is about to change but more on that later! LOL

As I was saying, I found the mount in a box and realized that I had been completely spoiled by the iOptron GOTONOVA/MT/PRO systems. Wouldn’t it be great if they would make this system available for other mounts? Oh yeah! We’ve been down that road before! How silly of me to forget that iOptron has no intention of ever activating the gear ratio change feature in the 8401 controller! In fact, it once WAS active when the original manufacturer, Nanjing IDEA S&T Co. Ltd of Nanjing China, offered the GOTOSTAR upgrade kits. As soon as iOptron purchased the product rights they shut off that feature, added a quasi-USB port and called it the GOTONOVA which is the product that sold me on iOptron.

So, here I am looking at this wonderful system and this wonderful mount and wondering just what kind of magic would be needed to marry the two products. Then it hit me! It hit me like a ton of bricks! If iOptron is so damned stuck up and will not listen to reason, then reason should be damned! I’ll MAKE the two items play together in spite of what is considered impossible. Yep! That was the ticket! I will make this happen come Hell or high water!!

OK. That’s the really quick history about how the project was born. From here on things should move a bit more quickly. The first thing was to realize that the GOTONOVA/MT/PRO systems as well as the CG5s, LX-75s and other mounts all use a final gear ratio of 144:1. The problem is that the gears on the Gemini were 183:1 and 181:1. The gears were apparently different because they had been made up by an amateur using a common hand tap and not excellent math skills. (This is why I am almost certain that the gears were not made by the same person who made the mount. The quality difference was stunning.) I needed a good set of gears that had the correct ratio. OK. I just happen to have a Mini Tower that I swapped out for a client because theirs was trashed by the post office during shipping. Since I never did get a settlement from the post office I had tossed this broken mount into a parts box. Well, low and behold I just happened to have two fine worm wheels and two fine motors and a logic board and a GPS that were in that mount. LET THE SURGERY BEGIN!!!

I removed the needed components from the broken MT and began measuring everything. It took some time and a number of trial fittings, but, eventually I had the RA gear set up on the shaft. It was nothing to make up a good slip clutch and I was able to use the old motor GI-1 mounts by making a new frame for the MT worm/motor assembly. The nice thing about the new frame was that it was solid as a rock and has no of the twisting and flexure that plague the Mini Towers and PROs.

Plastic motor mount

The DEC axle was a different story. It was necessary for me to bore out the center of the worm wheel instead of making up a reducer as I had done on the RA axle. So, it was off to my trusty South Bend Heavy 10” lathe, again. Once I got the bore to exactly where I needed it to be I made up clutch parts and spacers so that everything would line up. I then made up housings to cover up the motors and gears. While I was making the housings I realized that I had plenty of space in which to place the GPS module! Far out! A GEM with the GOTONOVA with a built in GPS system! THIS is going to be FUN!

As time would allow I spent a few minutes here and a few minutes there getting things ready. All of the gears and motors were in place and the housings were almost done. I then realized that there was one small problem that needed to be solved. The cable from the DEC motor used in the Mini Tower is only a few inches long. It would never in a million years reach all the way down from the DEC axle to where the logic board was located below the RA gear housing. I had a spare cable from another mount that had the six wires I needed to send the power and control signals from the motor and encoder to the logic board and back again. I was most likely it was from a CG5. Go figure! I purchased some Ethernet connectors and they matched the cable ends so I installed one into each motor cover, wired them up to the leads and BOOM! I was ready for testing. Oh. I still needed to mount the GPS. Oops! That took all of about 20 minutes to make up the required mounting point.

RA motor, worm wheel and GPS from MT.

The bench tests looked promising since the motors were turning and things SEEMED to be aligning well. We ran things around on the test bench for a few days making a few adjustments along the way. We can only do so much from the bench so it was time to head out back and set things up in the real world.

On the bench

I went out and set up the tripod and then placed the mount upon it. The 4” Jaegers was next added along with the counterweight. Everything was balanced to perfection and the power was turned on. The first test was to just make certain that the motors would handle the load. I found out instantly that the 1.25 amp power supply that I had was not able to provide sufficient and reliable power. I should have looked at the power supply when I grabbed it off the shelf because we already had determined long ago that the original power supplies that came with the MT was just plain junk. OK. That was just a minor oversight. I went in and got one of my nice 3.0 amp supplies and tried again. Yippee! Everything seemed to be working. It was now time for the real testing to begin.

I did a two star alignment just to see how things performed. As expected the mount was off target, but, not by much. It was only about 5 degrees off of each alignment star. OK. Let’s try hitting a target such as Saturn. Hmmm… The scope slewed to where it believed Saturn was located and it was off by about 5 degrees. Oh well. For a first run I could accept that. Beside the fact that it was getting cold (about 60 degrees and falling) I was only going to do some tracking tests for now. Once Saturn was centered in the field of view I cranked up the magnification and let it track. After about ½ hour I had to make my first correction. The seeing wasn’t that good because the Moon was full and there was a lot of haze. Even so, I tried to bag a few Messier objects just for the heck of it. I did manage to get M13. Again, it was off a bit. This time it was only about two degrees off and only in Declination. M56 was just not to be seen, but, M57 was pretty easy and was actually within the FOV, though just barely.

I next went to the trouble of a three star alignment. One of the really neat features of the GOTONOVA system is that after completing this process the controller reports to you how far off from true polar alignment the mount is in minutes of arc. From there it is easy to dial in the mount so that it is very close to perfectly aligned. Just repeat the three star alignment process and keep adjusting until the mount is as close as you wish it to be. The mount said that I was about 36 minutes too high and 93 minutes too far to the west. I guess that would explain some of the errors. The haze had become much worse and the dew was settling hard. Stephen and I were actually getting soaked because of the dew so we closed down for the night and went to bed.

This afternoon (17-MAY-2011) I was going to pull everything apart and go through things to see if I had maybe missed something that would account for the excessive looseness and wiggles that I experienced last night. As soon as I got up onto my step ladder I found out that some things are just so obvious they cannot be seen until they pretty much reach out and slap you. I was getting ready to remove the OTA and the mount wiggled a bit. I was curious to see just where it was flexing and when I moved the mount a bit I saw something that made me feel like a village should be missing me. I had forgotten to tighten the clamping screws that hold the mount in place after adjusting it in azimuth!! I clamped them down just as Stephen arrived to help me tear things down. I told him what I found. He snickered and agreed that we should test things again this evening, or, last night by now. So, we waited.

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This evening we got things fired up again and then I did another three star alignment. I am not at all surprised to find that the mount was now only 3 minutes too low and 20 minutes too far west of perfect alignment. The Hell with it! That’s close enough for testing. So, off we went to Saturn, again. Saturn was the very first object that I ever saw through a telescope over 52 years ago. In fact, that was what got me started in astronomy and I’ve never grown tired of visiting my old friend. As the mount whirred away I was hoping that things would be better this evening. The Moon was already on the rise and the haze was again becoming a nuisance. Well, Saturn was not in the FOV. DARN! Wait a minute! It was right at the edge of the field of view! Far out, Man! That was a nice feeling. We centered Saturn and used the SYNCH function to tell the mount how much it needed to correct its math model and then ramped up the power. We inserted and old Criterion 4mm AR eyepiece which gives killer views of the planets and then let it track. Let’s see… A 4” f/15 has a focal length of 60”. That is 1524mm and the EP is has a 4mm focus. That means that we were working at about 380 magnifications. Saturn was just a bit blurry because of the poor seeing condition, but, it was centered and looking good. While we waited to see how well the mount tracked we went off to set up another telescope and mount for testing. We also went inside and consulted our favorite planetarium program, Voyager, to see if one of the more interesting objects would be up for viewing soon. We did find that Omega Centauri would be clearing a neighbor’s tree within about 30 minutes so we went outside and started to hunt for it with binoculars. We found it, eventually. The full Moon was now really messing with the haze and making things even more, uh, challenging.

Still, it is far better than dealing with the damned barn yard street lights that are out front!

We went back to the scope and Saturn was still well within the field of view. It had moved a bit, about ½ of the FOV, but, it was still there. Now it was time to try for Omega. I switched back to my 40mm EP for a magnification of 38x and told the controller to go to NGC5139, which is the number for the Omega Centauri cluster. No, it does NOT have a Messier number because old Charlie wasn’t able to see it from anywhere in France when he made his famous list. Sorry Charlie! When the mount stopped slewing I found that the FOV was nearly black as pitch. Of course it should be because the object had yet to clear that tree in the neighbor’s yard! (I swear, one of these days, I am going to get some beavers and let them loose in that yard! That ONE TREE is just perfectly placed and just the right size to screw up a good portion of my southern sky! Just why it has to be so darned healthy is beyond me. Why couldn’t it have fallen in the last hurricane and made things so much nicer for us?)

Stephen and I went back to setting up the other mount. That went fine and we were starting to bag a few objects in spite of that darned haze. When we finally went back to check on the Jaegers we found that Omega Centauri was in the EP! It was surprisingly faint, more so than we expected, but, it was there. It wasn’t in the center either, but, it was well inside the 50% zone. I’ll take that! After centering the object and again using the SYNCH command we then let the mount track for well over an hour and it never moved. The scope and mount were tracking very well especially since the mount was pointing to an object that was just barely 12 degrees above the SOUTHERN HORIZON. That was very satisfying, indeed.

I think our little experiment has indeed proven itself! The GOTONOVA/MT is a product that has huge potential. If only iOptron would realize this and make the upgrade kits available for other mounts they could do quite well. The idea of taking the GN upgrade kit and placing it onto an altitude-azimuth (Alt/Az) mount is, in my opinion, a brilliant idea which was so obvious that now one saw it before. The Mini Tower is one of those “Darn, I could have had a V-8!” products. There was nothing close to it that didn’t cost as much as a used car before it came along and now, there is nothing that can come close to it for features and price. It is a revolutionary product that was born out of another revolutionary product. Unfortunately, the people that make these items refuse to see outside of their little boxes and will not even consider other possibilities. Instead, the just reinvent the wheel, again and again. It’s a real shame when there is so much potential and so very little willingness to look beyond the edge of their glasses.

My next idea is to make the GOTONOVA work on an old DS-16 with a 12-1/2” f/4.8 reflector on board. Now that I’ve got the basics done and know what’s involved, that should be a piece of cake! In fact, I cannot see why the GOTONOVA/MT system cannot be made to work on just about every GEM out there. So, unless iOptron wants to do something really simple and really smart, which is to open up the gear change feature on the controller then I guess that it is up to others, with me possibly included, to do the work for them by going around them.

Let the games begin!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Steve Forbes

To all of our clients, past and future, we have done our best to keep the prices on the Turbo Charger upgrades as well as our other upgrades at a reasonable level. For the past three years we have been eating the increased costs of metals, bearings, etc. We have, for the past year, been operating at virtually our cost. Now, metal prices are up again as well as gasoline and shipping. This is because of and no thanks to, our friends on the other side of the planet who are buying up every darned piece of scrap metal that can be found and then selling it back to us at exorbitant prices! It is also, with no thanks at all, to the troubled Middle East and the fact that the oil prices are going ballistic, again. (DRILL HERE! DRILL NOW! DAMN IT!) We cannot hold back any longer. Today, with a groan and a heavy heart, we increased the prices on all of our services. I am sorry, but, we have no choice.

What I can say that we will still be offering the highest quality upgrades to the most fantastic mount to come along in years. We all know that the Mini Tower is a revolutionary product. We also, all know that the quality of parts and production has huge room for improvement. This is where we take over. We offer those improvements that the factory simply cannot or will not even consider. Actually, we can’t complain. If they did offer a high end product from the beginning, we wouldn’t have a market! I guess we all win in that case. iOptron is now world renowned for the Mini Tower. We are world renowned for our services. Any astronomer who gets one a Mini Tower or one of our Turbo Charged/Super Charged models will have the best Alt/Az GOTO mount in the world. Even with the investment of a few extra dollars, there is nothing that can touch them.

Thank you for your understanding and clear skies,

Steve Forbes

Experiences with the iOptron MiniTower Mount and My Search for the Ultimate Visual Astronomy Set Up.

by Ken Lum

What I was Using

For the past 10 years, I had been using a Celestron Ultima 2000(U2K) mostly for visual observing and was very happy with it. However, I dreamed of finding an easy and portable way to use at least an 8″ Schmidt Cassegrain for large light gathering capacity along with a parallel mounted refractor to take advantage of its superior resolution ability for lunar and planetary viewing as well as wide field viewing at lower magnification.
I tried to do this with my fork mounted U2K and found it to be rather cumbersome. There just is not enough room between the forks to accommodate so much equipment as well as a heavy counterweight to balance the assembly properly. Also, I could not mount a couple of my heavier refractors such as the Takahashi Sky 90 or Astro-Physics Traveler on top of the U2K. It was just not practical. Only a very light Orion Short Tube 80 was feasible for this configuration by mounting it on top of the C8 OTA via Losmandy mounting rings and it was still very awkward. In addition, the old U2K hand paddle interface was becoming obsolete compared to what is now available in newer telescopes, and the vertical stack of the two telescopes caused the eyepiece of the top Short Tube 80 telescope to interfere with access to the lower C8 telescope eyepiece.

The iOptron MiniTower Mount

Then along came the iOptron MiniTower. With its ability to mount a C8 on one side of the tower and any other comparable telescope of one’s choice on the other side with GOTO tracking in either altazimuth or equatorial mode, this mount seemed a dream come true, especially for visual astronomy. Furthermore, iOptron was advertising a newer version in the form of the MiniTower Pro(MT Pro) said to have more accurate GOTO pointing and heavier load bearing capability due to beefier bearings. I ordered one and ended up waiting some months for it as it was not yet released at the time.
In the meantime, I joined the iOptron Yahoo Group to learn more about people’s experiences with this mount. What I found was that many people found it useful to use the services of a Mr. Steve Forbes of Trapezium Telescopes(http://www.trapeziumtelescopes.com/) to upgrade the MT into what he called the MiniTower Turbo(MT Turbo). With this upgrade, (costing $450 with Mr. Forbes paying for the return postage in my instance) any deficiencies in the mount software would be corrected to increase GOTO pointing accuracy, all the axes tightened up to eliminate backlash, heavier Timken bearings installed to increase load capability, and a throughly documented real sky test of all its GOTO and other capabilities using a C8. Since the MiniTower Pro had not yet been released at that time, there was no comparable upgrade path for the Pro model. However, I do see such an upgrade path offered on the Trapezium web site now. Mr. Forbes also offers what he calls a Super Charge Upgrade the details of which can be found on his web site. I will not comment on these upgrades here as I have little knowledge about these recent offerings. Also, I mainly want to write about my more direct experiences with the Mini Tower.
So the MT Pro finally arrived, and I eagerly anticipated setting it up and using it. I mounted a C8 on one side and a Takahashi Sky 90 on the other side. It proved to be a real joy to transport and set up due to its light weight and portability. It certainly was more convenient than the elaborately heavier instruments of my stronger and more exuberant youth now that I have become an old fart.
I found that it’s tracking capability in altazimuth was quite excellent out of the box. I used it for high magnification viewing of the Sun in H-alpha with a Coronado 90 filter on the Sky 90 and found the tracking to be flawless.
The wide separation between the C8 and the Sky 90 also means that the two telescopes do not interfere with each other for eyepiece access. Indeed, two people could be looking through both telescopes simultaneously without getting in each other’s way. Further, I could easily mount any of my small refractors with the C8 as desired whether it would be my Orion Short Tube 80, Takahashi Sky 90, or AP Traveler. And there is no need for any heavy counterweights when two scopes are mounted to balance each other. Adjusting the two telescopes to be precisely parallel was also very easy with the adjustment screws that come with the mount.

Deficiencies of the MT Pro and MT and How I was Rescued

However, with further use of the MT Pro, I found the GOTO accuracy was really deficient. Some objects would arrive well into a wide field eyepiece view, but many were not even close, being several degrees off so that it was not even in the finder scope. During one star party, I had to resort to manual pointing to get some objects in the field. Disappointed, I contacted someone at iOptron tech support to see what I needed to do to correct this situation. The tech support person proved very unhelpful. He claimed that the mount was perfect as is and that my problems were all due to my not setting up and using the mount properly, In particular, he felt I was not leveling the mount properly when, in fact, I was leveling it spot on both with the built in leveler and my own independent level. In the end, he said we had reached an impasse(his words) and could not help me further. Wow, was that a bummer!
I then communicated with Steve Forbes at Trapezium Telescopes on how he could help. The problem, he said, was with the firmware which needed correction. Downloading new firmware from the iOptron web site would not help. At the time, he said he was awaiting iOptron to make this correction for the Pro, but had no idea if and when this would happen. Also, he had no access to the source code so he could not correct the GOTO pointing problem. However, as of this writing (Jan, 2011), the iOptron Yahoo Group just announced that new firmware for the iOptron MT Pro was just released. But I have not yet heard anything about how well it performs.
Steve suggested, instead, to return the MT Pro and get a regular MT and send it to him for his Turbo upgrade. While he had no access to the MT Pro firmware source code, he knew that iOptron had corrected the firmware for the MT, and he could install the newer version as part of the Turbo upgrade. Once done, he said the GOTO pointing accuracy would be spot on and would have at least the same tracking and load carrying capacity of the MT Pro. The regular MT retails for $749 while the MT Pro costs $1299 without taking shipping into account. With the money saved on the price difference($550) I could afford to upgrade and get a mount that was potentially even better than the MT Pro. Steve really gained my confidence by answering all my emails promptly and courteously. He has now moved to Florida from New Hampshire and is now up and operating again after the inevitable hiatus. He can be contacted at: Stephen.Forbes@Trapeziumtelescopes.com

Upgrading the MT mount to the MT Turbo

So I exchanged the MT Pro for the regular MT. The original MT I got had at least two problems. First was that the rotational axes had lots of backlash. Second was that the GOTO pointing accuracy was better than that of the MT Pro, but still not very good. But at least the desired objects were more frequently in a wide field of view than not. After my preliminary testing, I sent the mount to Steve with a check for $450.
Three weeks later, the upgraded MT Turbo mount arrived. I initially mounted my Tak Sky 90 and put it through its paces with a 12 volt battery as the power source. First of all, the backlash I experienced earlier was completely gone and the scope was absolutely rock steady. Best of all, the GOTO pointing accuracy was consistently and absolutely spot on! I mostly reproduced the pointing accuracy test results that Steve sent to me with the upgraded mount and added a few of my own. In object after object, everything was very near the center of the field! And the mount was so easy to use! I was absolutely elated. This thing really works. In addition, he put handles on the altitude clutch making that item much easer to use. Of course, this modification will invalidate the warrantee with iOptron making any returns impossible. For me that is unimportant.
Personally, I find this unusual relationship between Steve Forbes of Trapezium Telescopes and iOptron quite puzzling. It would seem that iOptron would want to avail itself of Steve’s services(or do something like it in-house) to make up for the mount’s deficiencies before shipping them out to customers who end up disappointed and returning the mount or, worse, selling it to the next unsuspecting victim. The distribution of the defective iOptron Pro was particularly troublesome as up until now, this was really a defective mount. However, with iOptron just releasing the new firmware package on its web site, all this hopefully may change. Steve is also puzzled by this and cannot give me a good explanation. I am so glad that I checked out the iOptron Yahoo Group. It was quite revelatory.

Other Features I Did Not Test

In addition to the features I described above, there are other features that I have not used, but are available. The iOptron MT is capable of being mounted equatorially on a wedge. Such a wedge was designed by Steve Forbes and is available for sale at ADM accessories (http://admaccessories.com/) for $299(http://admaccessories.com/Miscellaneous_iOptron_Wedge.htm?). Astrophotographers would find such an arrangement useful. Related to this, the mount is said to be able to accommodate autoguiding. However, this wedge will apparently not fit the more robust MT Pro tripod but will fit the Celestron CG5 and Orion EQ6/ATLAS tripods.
Although, I have not done this, a computer can be hooked up to the hand paddle via a USB connection on the hand paddle for use with planetarium programs. Steve tells me that it will work with Voyager 4.5 from Carina Software.
The mount can be powered with 8 AA batteries although my preference is to use a more robust external battery or even 120v wall power.
Anyone with experience of these and other features that I have not covered are encouraged to post their impressions and inquiries on the iOptron Yahoo Group. Steve is also available to discuss any inquiries about these and other aspects of these items.

Accessories

Now that my experience with the mount has been addressed, I just want to make some comments about accessories. The tripod that is normally sold with the MT is a lightweight spindly thing that is definitely inadequate for this mount. Instead, I exchanged it for a much more robust tripod that comes with the MT Pro with 2″ diameter legs. It retails for $148 and really works much better and will fit.
The hand control paddle has the GOTO NOVA software interface which is very easy to use. It contains a data base of 130,000 objects, up to 256 user defined objects and 9 different adjustment slew speeds that can be very easily changed using the keypad. The hand paddle also has a USB port that allows connection to a computer for use with planetarium computer programs as well as other functions. I have not tried this yet.
Another upgrade is the mounting saddle for the telescopes. Steve recommended substituting the narrower Vixen-style dovetail saddle that comes with the MT for one that will accept the wider Losmandy-style dovetail mounting plates especially if I intended to mount a C8 or C 9.25 on it. He recommended a D series Dual Saddle that will accept both Vixen and Losmandy dovetails sold by ADM Accessories(http://admaccessories.com/) that retails for $139 sans shipping. Make sure to distinguish between the regular MT as opposed to the MT Pro saddles as the mounting screws have different separations for the two mount models.
This saddle will allow mounting telescopes with both Losmandy and Vixen dovetails without necessitating swapping dovetails between telescopes. The second telescope on the opposite side of the Tower mounted on the altitude extension axis still needs a narrower Vixen-style dovetail that works just fine for small refractors. The Vixen-style saddle used here has two 1/4″ sized adjustment screws to help aligning both telescopes into accurate parallelism.

Developing this Set Up into the Ultimate Visual Telescope Astronomy Experience

Once I mounted both the C8 and the Sky 90 on the MT Turbo I put it through its paces in altazimuth mode. What a joy to use! There is a need to reasonably balance each side of the altitude axis as this will put less strain on the drive motors. Using one telescope will need the included counterweight. Calibration on the sky only requires leveling the mount accurately with the built in level and pointing the mount in a roughly North-South direction while pointing the scope up vertically. Then tighten the clutches. There is no need for much accuracy with these procedures. The built in GPS should give you your latitude and longitude although I had to enter my coordinates manually. No need for much accuracy here either except for the leveling.
Only one object really needs to be selected for calibration. Even planets and the Sun are fine so long as the date and time are entered reasonably accurately to within a few minutes. This will allow the mount to slew the telescopes roughly to the region of the object. Using the hand paddle set at a high slew speed, I manually finished slewing the scope to the object and accurately centered it in the eyepiece. Then I synced it with the sync function. This will accurately calibrate the mount to everything else in the sky and result in accurate centering of all objects in the data base.
Very interestingly, I found that if I accidentally tripped on a tripod leg and slightly knocked out the calibration, all I had to do was manually slew back to the object with the hand controller and resync. Then away I go again! It was much easier than with my old U2K which does not have a sync feature unless I used an external computer or needed to repeat a complete recalibration routine. This is very nice for star parties where many people are milling around in the dark.

Making Small Telescopes Outperform Much Bigger Ones

One unusual thing I am doing is using a Collins I3 photomultiplier night vision eyepiece for visual(http://www.ceoptics.com/). By itself it really makes galaxies and star clusters stand out in heavily light polluted areas even though everything turns green due to the light emitting phosphor. Even better, with a narrow band H-alpha filter such as Orion’s 6.7 nm bandpass filter or the 9 nm filter from NightVisionastronomy.com, it becomes the ultimate light pollution filter and makes visible big swatches of very faint emission nebulae such as the North American California(NGC 7000), the California Nebula(NGC 1499), the Butterfly nebula(IC 1318 near Gamma Cygni), the Crescent Nebula(NGC 6888) and IC 1396 with the Sky 90 and C8 in a single field even with a street lamp shining on me. With the filter everything turns black and white which is how most deep sky objects look visually anyway. The only disadvantage is that there is a variable amount of electronic noise due to the spontaneous emissions of the phosphor looking like sparkles which some people find irritating. I am not yet sure how to deal with this.
Another downside is that the eyepiece retails for $2995, but a couple of used ones show up on Astromart.com each year for around $1500 which is how I got mine. Nevertheless, this set up makes real sidewalk astronomy possible and makes for a telescope that can only be replicated with a 20-36″ f/0.5-1 to get comparable field of view and light gathering capacity which is physically impossible to build and use or necessitates resort to CCD imaging which is too cumbersome for quick look-sees. Indeed, for visual, I no longer need anything bigger than an 8-9.25″.
Finally, it saves travel time, gas, and wear and tear on my car going out to dark sky sites as well as allows me to spend less money on big telescopes. I can also see and show these kinds of faint things deep in a light polluted urban environment making even the full price investment seem well worth it. Now with the iOptron/Trapezium set up, it will be easier than ever to make small telescopes outperform much bigger ones!
The Collins I3 eyepiece is said to have an approximately 10, 000 hour lifetime which works out to 21 years if it is used 3 hrs a day and 3 times per week. So the used ones are likely to still have plenty of life.

Conclusion…

So, this is my summary of how I came to use the iOptron MT. I hope readers will benefit from my experience and insights. To be fair, despite iOptron’s issues, the MT is really a great mount if it is developed properly. One final caveat I have is that Trapezium Telescopes, and Collins Electro Optics are small businesses that are highly likely to be dependent on their proprietors for continued existence. What would happen if these companies’s proprietors had something untoward happen to them could be anybody’s guess. This could impinge on future availability of product and service. I am told by Steve Forbes that iOptron is actually a pretty big company so it may not be so vulnerable to personnel issues. By comparison, Celestron and Meade are big enough to not be so dependent on any one person to stay in business. So they are likely to be more dependably around for the long term future. But if these smaller companies are really successful, one of the bigger companies could buy them out like Meade did with Coronado Solar Filters. Then, the technology could be further and more dependably supported. But don’t hold your breath. These are highly innovative products that can be very rewarding to use, but could pose risky long term service arrangements. Nonetheless, for those willing to take the risk, these are great products that represent real improvements in the observing experience for amateur astronomers. I could not be more happy with what I have.

K.L.

Have you ever had one of those nights when you cannot sleep because a project is just nagging you to death? I had just such an experience this weekend. I have had an objective lens that I purchased many years ago and never got around to using. It is a 6.3” f/10 lens assembly that was made for our wonderful friends at NASA. I bought it as a left over from the people that made it. Perhaps a little history is in order here.

Many years ago, in Hudson, NH, there was an American branch of a very high end French optical firm. They made optics for such little things as the Ranger probes, Sky Lab, Soyouz and the Space Shuttle. I have a friend there who designed and built the lenses used in the cargo bays of the Shuttle. This lens was one of a number that were made for a live tracking project for NASA. I spent a small fortune to get it. Of course, at that time, I was working as was the late wife and we were in pretty fair shape. That was at least 15 years ago, roughly.

I had recently put the lens up for sale on one of the user’s groups/forum web sites and was contacted by only one person who was interested in it. He wanted to know about it. I could only tell him what I remembered and that I had never tried it. That is what caused me to become more than curious and restless.

I had put this project off long enough. I just had to know if this lens was good, or not. So, I went out to the shop at about 2300 hrs that night and started working on this project. I took the lens out and mounted it into a tube that I had. I may have actually bought this tube for this very project a number of years ago. I may have even acquired it from my friends’ company. I just do not remember. What I do know is that it was a perfect fit and length. YIPEE!

Oh! Here are the specifics on the lens. It is a doublet. It has a clear aperture of 6.3″. It has a focal length of 63.06″ or f/10. I have never seen a cell of this design before. The elements are held apart by what appears to be glass buttons! There are about 12 of them about the edge and behind the cell members. No little foil tabs on this baby! The cell is heavy and has no adjusting screws. If made to the exacting standards that are the norm for this company they wouldn’t be needed, anyway. The cell is held together with four screws instead of having a threaded retainer ring. It is a very interesting design which I’ve never seen before.

As I noted above, I began around 2300 hrs. The lens mounted up easily. I had the old focuser from the 1910 Mogey sitting on the shelf. It was necessary for me to find a piece of scrap aluminum plate and make a mounting plate for it. I can only wonder if the neighbor were watching me rummage through my metal supplies at about 0030 hrs! I found a piece that was useable and once done I went to use the Mogey focuser. I had forgotten that this was from the turn of the century and that EPs were NOT 1-1/4″ OD! They were a weird size. The OD of the tube is 2.005” (50.95mm) and the ID is 1.935” (49.16mm). I now had to make an adapter for that! I had done this many years ago, but, just like a lot of other items it “disappeared” during the Move from Hell.

I didn’t have a piece of stock that would allow me to make an adapter to use any of my 2″ EPs. Since the focuser tube is just less than 2″ it didn’t really matter. So, I made one up that allowed me to use my 1-1/4″ EPs. I finished that right around 0430 hrs. It had been cloudy all night, but, the sky had now partially cleared. Excellent! The seeing was horrible but I was going to find out if this was worth pursuing any further.

I laid the OTA on an old blanket that I placed across the hood of my 1997 Ford Explorer and went for the red light on a radio tower that was about 2.5 miles out. From the red light on that tower I could see the rungs on the ladders! Everything was crystal clear and sharp! Good sign! Of course, I could easily see the image shimmering from the heat rising from the ground between my position and the tower. I next took the 1971 Cave GEM that we had just finished restoring and with the help of cable ties mounted the OTA onto the saddle of the mount. It was necessary for me to lie on the ground and crawl around because the EP was so close to the ground. It was worth it!

It was now just after 0500 hrs. I started with a few stars to the south. That’s all that was visible at the time so I took what I could get. I put a 40mm TeleVue Plossl into the focuser and started racking it in. The stars snapped into focus and were perfect pin points. GOOD! Then a few more showed up to the east. Once again, I was getting perfect images. I found that I absolutely had to wear my eyeglasses because my astigmatism is so bad that I was seeing flaring. At first I thought it might be the lens. It wasn’t. It was just my eyes. With my glasses back on I was seeing nice little points of light right out to the edge of the field of view.

Shortly afterward, Vega came out from behind the trees and clouds. OK. BIG TEST! Once focused, I saw absolutely perfect Airy disks even though the sky was boiling! Inside of the focus I could just barely see a hint of red. It was very hard to see. Outside of focus I think I saw a very faint touch of green, maybe! It may have actually been my glasses since I wear bifocals and the dividing line kept getting in the way. Remember, because this OTA was temporarily mounted on a GEM that was for a Newtonian reflector I was laying on the cold concrete driveway to get to the eyepiece! At focus, not one sign of color was visible at all. Vega was a brilliant blue-white!

Also of note is the fact that the inside of the tube was still bright metal and no baffles had been installed. In addition, there were two very bright street lights to either side of me and the neighbor across the street had left his porch light on. This should have made things much worse, but, the only real problem was the lights shining into my eyes and not the objective lens.

I switched to a old Celestron 25mm Plossl and went for the Double-Double next. That was an easy split! Polaris wasn’t even a challenge. I went back to Lyra where the Ring Nebula (M57) was just visible through thin clouds AND TREES! Then it was back to Epsilon Lyrae, again. Then I just panned around for a few minutes more. Everything was far better than I had hoped.

Just as I was getting my now rather sore back and butt off of the cold concrete driveway, Venus rose above the trees in the southeast at about 15 degrees altitude. The sky was boiling like water and there were clouds in the area. Still, during steady moments, I was able to see the gibbous planet with total clarity and NO FALSE COLOR!!! NONE WHAT SO EVER! Venus as most of you are well aware is one of the true tests of a refractor. If one gets no color on that object then the lens is a super lens. I will be more than willing to put this lens up against an 6″ AP and it will at least match it, if not beat it!

It was now 0600 so I pushed the scope and mount back into the garage finally went to bed knowing that I even though there was some more work to do it would certainly be worth the additional effort.

Clear skies,

Steve

Experiences with the iOptron MiniTower Mount and My Search for the Ultimate Visual Astronomy Set Up.

by Ken Lum

What I was Using

For the past 10 years, I had been using a Celestron Ultima 2000(U2K) mostly for visual observing and was very happy with it. However, I dreamed of finding an easy and portable way to use at least an 8″ Schmidt Cassegrain for large light gathering capacity along with a parallel mounted refractor to take advantage of its superior resolution ability for lunar and planetary viewing as well as wide field viewing at lower magnification.
I tried to do this with my fork mounted U2K and found it to be rather cumbersome. There just is not enough room between the forks to accommodate so much equipment as well as a heavy counterweight to balance the assembly properly. Also, I could not mount a couple of my heavier refractors such as the Takahashi Sky 90 or Astro-Physics Traveler on top of the U2K. It was just not practical. Only a very light Orion Short Tube 80 was feasible for this configuration by mounting it on top of the C8 OTA via Losmandy mounting rings and it was still very awkward. In addition, the old U2K hand paddle interface was becoming obsolete compared to what is now available in newer telescopes, and the vertical stack of the two telescopes caused the eyepiece of the top Short Tube 80 telescope to interfere with access to the lower C8 telescope eyepiece.

The iOptron MiniTower Mount

Then along came the iOptron MiniTower. With its ability to mount a C8 on one side of the tower and any other comparable telescope of one’s choice on the other side with GOTO tracking in either altazimuth or equatorial mode, this mount seemed a dream come true, especially for visual astronomy. Furthermore, iOptron was advertising a newer version in the form of the MiniTower Pro(MT Pro) said to have more accurate GOTO pointing and heavier load bearing capability due to beefier bearings. I ordered one and ended up waiting some months for it as it was not yet released at the time.
In the meantime, I joined the iOptron Yahoo Group to learn more about people’s experiences with this mount. What I found was that many people found it useful to use the services of a Mr. Steve Forbes of Trapezium Telescopes(http://www.trapeziumtelescopes.com/) to upgrade the MT into what he called the MiniTower Turbo(MT Turbo). With this upgrade, (costing $450 with Mr. Forbes paying for the return postage in my instance) any deficiencies in the mount software would be corrected to increase GOTO pointing accuracy, all the axes tightened up to eliminate backlash, heavier Timken bearings installed to increase load capability, and a throughly documented real sky test of all its GOTO and other capabilities using a C8. Since the MiniTower Pro had not yet been released at that time, there was no comparable upgrade path for the Pro model. However, I do see such an upgrade path offered on the Trapezium web site now. Mr. Forbes also offers what he calls a Super Charge Upgrade the details of which can be found on his web site. I will not comment on these upgrades here as I have little knowledge about these recent offerings. Also, I mainly want to write about my more direct experiences with the Mini Tower.
So the MT Pro finally arrived, and I eagerly anticipated setting it up and using it. I mounted a C8 on one side and a Takahashi Sky 90 on the other side. It proved to be a real joy to transport and set up due to its light weight and portability. It certainly was more convenient than the elaborately heavier instruments of my stronger and more exuberant youth now that I have become an old fart.
I found that it’s tracking capability in altazimuth was quite excellent out of the box. I used it for high magnification viewing of the Sun in H-alpha with a Coronado 90 filter on the Sky 90 and found the tracking to be flawless.
The wide separation between the C8 and the Sky 90 also means that the two telescopes do not interfere with each other for eyepiece access. Indeed, two people could be looking through both telescopes simultaneously without getting in each other’s way. Further, I could easily mount any of my small refractors with the C8 as desired whether it would be my Orion Short Tube 80, Takahashi Sky 90, or AP Traveler. And there is no need for any heavy counterweights when two scopes are mounted to balance each other. Adjusting the two telescopes to be precisely parallel was also very easy with the adjustment screws that come with the mount.

Deficiencies of the MT Pro and MT and How I was Rescued

However, with further use of the MT Pro, I found the GOTO accuracy was really deficient. Some objects would arrive well into a wide field eyepiece view, but many were not even close, being several degrees off so that it was not even in the finder scope. During one star party, I had to resort to manual pointing to get some objects in the field. Disappointed, I contacted someone at iOptron tech support to see what I needed to do to correct this situation. The tech support person proved very unhelpful. He claimed that the mount was perfect as is and that my problems were all due to my not setting up and using the mount properly, In particular, he felt I was not leveling the mount properly when, in fact, I was leveling it spot on both with the built in leveler and my own independent level. In the end, he said we had reached an impasse(his words) and could not help me further. Wow, was that a bummer!
I then communicated with Steve Forbes at Trapezium Telescopes on how he could help. The problem, he said, was with the firmware which needed correction. Downloading new firmware from the iOptron web site would not help. At the time, he said he was awaiting iOptron to make this correction for the Pro, but had no idea if and when this would happen. Also, he had no access to the source code so he could not correct the GOTO pointing problem. However, as of this writing (Jan, 2011), the iOptron Yahoo Group just announced that new firmware for the iOptron MT Pro was just released. But I have not yet heard anything about how well it performs.
Steve suggested, instead, to return the MT Pro and get a regular MT and send it to him for his Turbo upgrade. While he had no access to the MT Pro firmware source code, he knew that iOptron had corrected the firmware for the MT, and he could install the newer version as part of the Turbo upgrade. Once done, he said the GOTO pointing accuracy would be spot on and would have at least the same tracking and load carrying capacity of the MT Pro. The regular MT retails for $749 while the MT Pro costs $1299 without taking shipping into account. With the money saved on the price difference($550) I could afford to upgrade and get a mount that was potentially even better than the MT Pro. Steve really gained my confidence by answering all my emails promptly and courteously. He has now moved to Florida from New Hampshire and is now up and operating again after the inevitable hiatus. He can be contacted at: Stephen.Forbes@Trapeziumtelescopes.com

Upgrading the MT mount to the MT Turbo

So I exchanged the MT Pro for the regular MT. The original MT I got had at least two problems. First was that the rotational axes had lots of backlash. Second was that the GOTO pointing accuracy was better than that of the MT Pro, but still not very good. But at least the desired objects were more frequently in a wide field of view than not. After my preliminary testing, I sent the mount to Steve with a check for $450.
Three weeks later, the upgraded MT Turbo mount arrived. I initially mounted my Tak Sky 90 and put it through its paces with a 12 volt battery as the power source. First of all, the backlash I experienced earlier was completely gone and the scope was absolutely rock steady. Best of all, the GOTO pointing accuracy was consistently and absolutely spot on! I mostly reproduced the pointing accuracy test results that Steve sent to me with the upgraded mount and added a few of my own. In object after object, everything was very near the center of the field! And the mount was so easy to use! I was absolutely elated. This thing really works. In addition, he put handles on the altitude clutch making that item much easer to use. Of course, this modification will invalidate the warrantee with iOptron making any returns impossible. For me that is unimportant.
Personally, I find this unusual relationship between Steve Forbes of Trapezium Telescopes and iOptron quite puzzling. It would seem that iOptron would want to avail itself of Steve’s services(or do something like it in-house) to make up for the mount’s deficiencies before shipping them out to customers who end up disappointed and returning the mount or, worse, selling it to the next unsuspecting victim. The distribution of the defective iOptron Pro was particularly troublesome as up until now, this was really a defective mount. However, with iOptron just releasing the new firmware package on its web site, all this hopefully may change. Steve is also puzzled by this and cannot give me a good explanation. I am so glad that I checked out the iOptron Yahoo Group. It was quite revelatory.

Other Features I Did Not Test

In addition to the features I described above, there are other features that I have not used, but are available. The iOptron MT is capable of being mounted equatorially on a wedge. Such a wedge was designed by Steve Forbes and is available for sale at ADM accessories (http://admaccessories.com/) for $299(http://admaccessories.com/Miscellaneous_iOptron_Wedge.htm?). Astrophotographers would find such an arrangement useful. Related to this, the mount is said to be able to accommodate autoguiding. However, this wedge will apparently not fit the more robust MT Pro tripod but will fit the Celestron CG5 and Orion EQ6/ATLAS tripods.
Although, I have not done this, a computer can be hooked up to the hand paddle via a USB connection on the hand paddle for use with planetarium programs. Steve tells me that it will work with Voyager 4.5 from Carina Software.
The mount can be powered with 8 AA batteries although my preference is to use a more robust external battery or even 120v wall power.
Anyone with experience of these and other features that I have not covered are encouraged to post their impressions and inquiries on the iOptron Yahoo Group. Steve is also available to discuss any inquiries about these and other aspects of these items.

Accessories

Now that my experience with the mount has been addressed, I just want to make some comments about accessories. The tripod that is normally sold with the MT is a lightweight spindly thing that is definitely inadequate for this mount. Instead, I exchanged it for a much more robust tripod that comes with the MT Pro with 2″ diameter legs. It retails for $148 and really works much better and will fit.
The hand control paddle has the GOTO NOVA software interface which is very easy to use. It contains a data base of 130,000 objects, up to 256 user defined objects and 9 different adjustment slew speeds that can be very easily changed using the keypad. The hand paddle also has a USB port that allows connection to a computer for use with planetarium computer programs as well as other functions. I have not tried this yet.
Another upgrade is the mounting saddle for the telescopes. Steve recommended substituting the narrower Vixen-style dovetail saddle that comes with the MT for one that will accept the wider Losmandy-style dovetail mounting plates especially if I intended to mount a C8 or C 9.25 on it. He recommended a D series Dual Saddle that will accept both Vixen and Losmandy dovetails sold by ADM Accessories(http://admaccessories.com/) that retails for $139 sans shipping. Make sure to distinguish between the regular MT as opposed to the MT Pro saddles as the mounting screws have different separations for the two mount models.
This saddle will allow mounting telescopes with both Losmandy and Vixen dovetails without necessitating swapping dovetails between telescopes. The second telescope on the opposite side of the Tower mounted on the altitude extension axis still needs a narrower Vixen-style dovetail that works just fine for small refractors. The Vixen-style saddle used here has two 1/4″ sized adjustment screws to help aligning both telescopes into accurate parallelism.

Developing this Set Up into the Ultimate Visual Telescope Astronomy Experience

Once I mounted both the C8 and the Sky 90 on the MT Turbo I put it through its paces in altazimuth mode. What a joy to use! There is a need to reasonably balance each side of the altitude axis as this will put less strain on the drive motors. Using one telescope will need the included counterweight. Calibration on the sky only requires leveling the mount accurately with the built in level and pointing the mount in a roughly North-South direction while pointing the scope up vertically. Then tighten the clutches. There is no need for much accuracy with these procedures. The built in GPS should give you your latitude and longitude although I had to enter my coordinates manually. No need for much accuracy here either except for the leveling.
Only one object really needs to be selected for calibration. Even planets and the Sun are fine so long as the date and time are entered reasonably accurately to within a few minutes. This will allow the mount to slew the telescopes roughly to the region of the object. Using the hand paddle set at a high slew speed, I manually finished slewing the scope to the object and accurately centered it in the eyepiece. Then I synced it with the sync function. This will accurately calibrate the mount to everything else in the sky and result in accurate centering of all objects in the data base.
Very interestingly, I found that if I accidentally tripped on a tripod leg and slightly knocked out the calibration, all I had to do was manually slew back to the object with the hand controller and resync. Then away I go again! It was much easier than with my old U2K which does not have a sync feature unless I used an external computer or needed to repeat a complete recalibration routine. This is very nice for star parties where many people are milling around in the dark.

Making Small Telescopes Outperform Much Bigger Ones

One unusual thing I am doing is using a Collins I3 photomultiplier night vision eyepiece for visual(http://www.ceoptics.com/). By itself it really makes galaxies and star clusters stand out in heavily light polluted areas even though everything turns green due to the light emitting phosphor. Even better, with a narrow band H-alpha filter such as Orion’s 6.7 nm bandpass filter or the 9 nm filter from NightVisionastronomy.com, it becomes the ultimate light pollution filter and makes visible big swatches of very faint emission nebulae such as the North American California(NGC 7000), the California Nebula(NGC 1499), the Butterfly nebula(IC 1318 near Gamma Cygni), the Crescent Nebula(NGC 6888) and IC 1396 with the Sky 90 and C8 in a single field even with a street lamp shining on me. With the filter everything turns black and white which is how most deep sky objects look visually anyway. The only disadvantage is that there is a variable amount of electronic noise due to the spontaneous emissions of the phosphor looking like sparkles which some people find irritating. I am not yet sure how to deal with this.
Another downside is that the eyepiece retails for $2995, but a couple of used ones show up on Astromart.com each year for around $1500 which is how I got mine. Nevertheless, this set up makes real sidewalk astronomy possible and makes for a telescope that can only be replicated with a 20-36″ f/0.5-1 to get comparable field of view and light gathering capacity which is physically impossible to build and use or necessitates resort to CCD imaging which is too cumbersome for quick look-sees. Indeed, for visual, I no longer need anything bigger than an 8-9.25″.
Finally, it saves travel time, gas, and wear and tear on my car going out to dark sky sites as well as allows me to spend less money on big telescopes. I can also see and show these kinds of faint things deep in a light polluted urban environment making even the full price investment seem well worth it. Now with the iOptron/Trapezium set up, it will be easier than ever to make small telescopes outperform much bigger ones!
The Collins I3 eyepiece is said to have an approximately 10, 000 hour lifetime which works out to 21 years if it is used 3 hrs a day and 3 times per week. So the used ones are likely to still have plenty of life.

Conclusion…

So, this is my summary of how I came to use the iOptron MT. I hope readers will benefit from my experience and insights. To be fair, despite iOptron’s issues, the MT is really a great mount if it is developed properly. One final caveat I have is that Trapezium Telescopes, and Collins Electro Optics are small businesses that are highly likely to be dependent on their proprietors for continued existence. What would happen if these companies’s proprietors had something untoward happen to them could be anybody’s guess. This could impinge on future availability of product and service. I am told by Steve Forbes that iOptron is actually a pretty big company so it may not be so vulnerable to personnel issues. By comparison, Celestron and Meade are big enough to not be so dependent on any one person to stay in business. So they are likely to be more dependably around for the long term future. But if these smaller companies are really successful, one of the bigger companies could buy them out like Meade did with Coronado Solar Filters. Then, the technology could be further and more dependably supported. But don’t hold your breath. These are highly innovative products that can be very rewarding to use, but could pose risky long term service arrangements. Nonetheless, for those willing to take the risk, these are great products that represent real improvements in the observing experience for amateur astronomers. I could not be more happy with what I have.

K.L.

So many people have trouble with getting the Mini Towers and Mini Tower PRO mounts to balance around the Azimuth axle that I thought I would post this simple proceedure. If you wish, print it out onto a small card and keep it with your mount. Of course, once you’ve done this a few times it will become a habit and your will no longer need the card.

The best way that I have found to balance the assembly around the azimuth axle is as follows.

1) Set everything up as if you were ready to run.

2) LOWER one tripod leg by about two inches so that gravity pulls on the heavier side. You will need to loosen the AZ clamp so be careful that something doesn’t knock you upside the head!

3) Adjust the CW until the assembly or CW remain in place no matter where you turn them around the azimuth axle.

4) Tighten the AZ clamp and RETURN THE TRIPOD TO A LEVEL POSTION!.

5) Balance the OTA around the altitude axle by loosening the clamp and moving the OTA back and forth in the saddle plate until it remains where you place it, too.

6) NOW, level the mount using the tripod legs and/or the leveling screws.

From there everything should work perfectly.

For alignment, instead of using the one star or two star method, the following method works fast and perfectly. This is much faster, much easier and much more accurate than the alignment selections in the hand controller.

It is a given that you have already done the above proceedure!

1) Turn on the mount and wait for the GPS to acquire the satellites.

2) Pick ANY bright object, such as Jupiter, the Moon, Sirius, etc., and tell the mount to slew to that item. I will pick Jupiter for this example.

3) Regardless of where the mount is pointed when you start it believes that when it stops moving that selection should be in the EP. It can be pointed at the ground and it still believes that Jupiter is in the EP.

4) If necessary, loosen the clutches just enough to maintain control of the scope and MANUALLY move the OTA so that Jupiter is in the FOV. It does NOT have to be dead on, just in the Field Of View!

5) Tighten the clutches.

6) Set your speed control to number 3 by pressing that key. You may now, if needed, center Jupiter in the EP using the arrow keys.

7) Select the SYNC function and press ENTER twice. It will now synchronize to Jupiter.

Select another object if you wish and slew to it. Let’s use Sirius.

9) If Sirius is not dead center then again use the arrow keys to center it. Once this is done then select the SYNC function again and press ENTER twice.

That’s it! From there on the mount should be dropping just about everything into the center of the EP. If you find that it is occasionally off a bit then just use the SYNC command to help the mount learn of its errors.

*** NOTE: A few of the Messier Objects have the WRONG COORDINATES! I believe M-41 or M-47, one of those two, is not correct and I think M-35 is off. Do NOT use the SYNC command on any object that is WAY OFF until you double check the coordinates against a GOOD data base, such as any planetarium program. I suspect that these few objects were installed with the 1950 coordinates because someone used the wrong chart when entering the data. There are also some erroneaous entries in the Double Star and Variable Star listing! These errors have not been addressed by any firmware updates. It is highly unlikely that they will be addressed, either. ***

Clear Skies and A

Steve

My goodness! Has it been that long since I have made any postings here? I must apologize to everyone most profusely. I’ve just been so busy with everything and, well; I just didn’t feel like writing. I had a job here that finally dried up and I’ve been working as hard as possible to satisfy my clients with new offerings. I just did not have enough energy or initiative to sit down and write. I will certainly try to do more writing from now on if there is still any interest. Write to me and let me know.

The short story of what has gone on is that we left the frozen wastelands of New Hampshire for the sunny and warm Emerald Coast. I got a job as a locksmith and Stephen followed and did the same. The move to the south was far more of an ordeal that we ever imagined. We STILL have boxes that have not been opened!

We both wound up working at the same place. It turned into a nightmare and we both had our jobs dry up. Since the working conditions and hours made life in a combat zone seem like a vacation, we really don’t miss it.

The summer was wonderfully hot. We hit CAT 5 heat conditions on a lot of days. It was tough, but, so much more enjoyable than the mildly warm excuse for a summer that we used to have in NH. The sights are wonderful. The Gulf is a beautiful aqua. The beaches are as white as in the Bahamas. It’s just great!

The skies here are not nearly as nice as in NH. However, there are a lot more nights that are at least clear! It’s nice not having to put on a jacket just to go out with our telescopes. Short sleeve shirts are perfect for nights of observing here. The light pollution is really bad, though. This has got to be one of the most poorly engineered lighting situations that I have seen. OK. NYC, LA, Miami and other HUGE cities are worse. Still, the complete stupidity and arrogance show by the lighting here is, from an astronomical view point, depressing! What makes up for it is that a short 30 minute drive will put us at a location that has dark skies that are quite on par with what we had in rural New Hampshire. It’s about the same as going from Manchester or Nashua, to Hillsboro or New Boston, NH.

Now that we have pretty much got things under control, more or less, we are working on doing upgrades to the Mini Towers and Mini Tower PROs. We may even begin doing upgrades to the new iOptron iEQ45 GEM. The jury is still out on the latter. We have expanded our services on the MTs and PROs. Not only do we offer the now famous Turbo Charger upgrades, but, we have new services, too. These are the Super Clutch and Super Charger Blue Printing services. The Super Clutch began as a new design of DEC clutch that is made specifically for the Mini Tower PRO. We quickly started offering it to the Mini Tower Turbos as well. It is a pressure plate and disk that have over 400% more surface area than the original factory clutches.

Because we discovered that the machining in the MT PROs was not as accurate as the Mini Tower (obviously a cost cutting measure) we decided that we could make them more accurate if we machined out the errors. This was the birth of the Super Charger Blue Printing Service. Also, since the single wire springs which maintain gear contact in both mounts are weak and many are beginning to wear out, we install new coiled springs when doing the Super Charger upgrades. The details of these operations are on our web site.

The Spring, Summer and Fall have flown by us so fast that we barely had time to notice them. Now it is winter and we are having a cold streak that hasn’t been seen here since the mid 60s! This is almost like being back in NH, except, there’s no snow, yet! I keep waiting to hear that it will arrive here. It certainly has been cold enough! In fact, sometimes, I’m wondering if we are even in Florida at all!

Recently, Stephen has taken up astro-imaging. He has been using a Meade DSI which he received as a birthday present. It’s a basic camera, but, it at least got him started. Now, thanks to an indefinitely long loan from Bob Gaskin, he is working with a Lumenera 2-0C astro-camera. The difference is amazing! We can now actually image faint fuzzy things and have them actually look like something recognizable! Here is one of his recent shots. The object is NGC 0247. It is located in the constellation of Cetus. It is a small 9th magnitude galaxy.

NGC-0247

Stephen has also managed to get a nice rendering of NGC 2683. This is another 9th magnitude galaxy the constellation of Lynx. Here is his image:

NGC-2683

These were taken with the camera mentioned above plus an Explore Scientific David Levy Comet Hunter telescope. They were mounted upon a Mini Tower that had been given the full Super Charger upgrade and was working in the EQ mode on our EQ wedge. The exposures were 25 second each and a total of about 37 were combined with Registax software. Not too bad for a beginner!

Anyway, I think that’s enough for now. I need to get used to writing again. There is so much that has happened and so much about which I could write that I need to sit and think about what will be next.

We have been presenting a lot of public star parties. Maybe I should write about those. We’ve been doing work at the Northwestern Florida State College observatory. I can write about that, too. OH! We have been restoring a 1971 Cave 8” f/6 reflector for one of the schools. That will be interesting. I’ve also just about completed the total overhaul of my venerable 1965 6” f/15 Jaegers refractor! That will be slick. Just wait until you see the tube!

OK. That’s it for now. Again, I sincerely apologize for being away from the BLOG for so long. I just didn’t have it in me to write for a while. I will do better.

Clear skies to all,

Steve Forbes

I just received my Supercharged MiniTower from Steve and set it up with my Celestron 11″ O.T.A. at the Eldorado Star Party this past four days. It worked flawlessly both tracking and slewing. The O.T.A. weighs 28 lbs. and I had 25 lbs. of counterweight. No problems whatsoever. John

WOW! Without the help of Mr. Forbes I would have been in a very tight, uncomfortable and just plain NASTY place with IOPTRON after getting a bum unit that was repaired x1 and then damaged and totally unuseable after it was shipped back to me in the styrofoam peanuts. Getting middle management at IOPTRON to expedite my concern and sending me a new unit was a nightmare, The Technical expert at IOPTRON was a nice and caring guy; I would ONLY chooose TRAPEZIUM as a vendor in the future because of Mr. Forbes professional attitude and constantly being available.

Last night, one of my good clients and good friend, Bob Gaskin, sent me some images that he had just taken while using his Mini Tower. Please, note that his MT does have the Timken Bearing Upgrade and is no longer a stock unit. I just wanted to make certain that this was clear.

Bob has been working in the AP field for quite some time. He has a web page that shows some of the most outstanding work that I have ever seen. Much of it was done with an Astro-Physics AP-900 GEM. He has some extremely nice telescopes and a high end SBIG astro-camera. With that in mind it is no wonnder that he has produced some remarkable images. His web site can be found here: http://gaskin-astro.org/blog/

Last night, Bob decided to “experiment” with his Stellarvue 80 mm refractor and the Mini Tower. He mounted up his camera and did a rough alignment. He then told the mount to go to M31 and it was, of course, dead center in the FOV. He started imaging with 30 seconds being his exposure time. After 40 images were taken he then processed them with one of the CCDTools programs. I think it was CCD-Stacks. I’m not perfectly certain since I don’t have that software and I am not an imager myself, yet. I think that Bob intends to change that last part in the near future. LOL

The images below are of the setup that he used last night in his driveway in Northwest Florida.

MT-80mm-SBIG

Another picture of Bob's rig

One more image of Bob's set up

Bob finished the processing and then called me on the telephone. He sounded rather excited and asked if I had checked my e-mail. I had literally just walked in the door and was only opening my first e-mail. I jumped up to his note and opened it up. This image is what I saw.

I could see why Bob was so excited. This image was beautiful! The fact that it was done with a small scope and the Mini Tower just made it that much more impressive. Bob then told me that he had not had to do ANY corrections over the 40+ minute session of imaging. He very specifically pointe out that the stars were pin points and that the Mini Tower had never drifted even once. He also told me that it was tracking as accurately as his AP-900 would track. Now THAT floored me! I knew the MT was a good mount, but, to have it track and image as well as a mount that has a base cost of TEN TIMES MORE was just remarkable!

Bob then told me he was now working on the Double Cluster and that he would send the final image of it when he was done processing it. I, however, had been up since 0500 and it was now 2300 hrs. I was beat and needed some sleep. I went to bed knowing that the morning e-mail would bring another nice image. This is the image that I received.

The Double Cluster in Perseus

There you have it folks! The Mini Tower is a most capable and versitile mount. There is, in my opinion, nothing that can come close to it for double or maybe even triple the price! The only way to get this performance is with an expensive GEM. I find it truly amazing that this little $800.00 ($1100.00 with the Timken Bearing Upgrade) can match a mount that sells for nothing less than 10 times the cost! I am extremely proud of the mount that we provided to Bob and even more proud of the people at iOptron for creating this remarkable product. Of course, I am also extremely proud to be one of the vendors that is allowed to offer this incredible mount to the astronomy community. I’m just wondering what iOptron has up their sleeves that will top this? I can’t wait to find out!

Clear skies to all,

Steve Forbes