Tonight was a special night. One of the more rare events for us occurred. The four Galilean Moons went out of sight. Two went behind Jupiter and two went in front of it. So, for several hours none of them were visible.
The weather here in Hillsboro, NH was actually pretty bad for astronomy tonight. The humidity was off the scale. The sky was milky and bright. The fog and dew were a constant hindrance, too. We were using the hair dryers more than a beauty parlor!
In spite of this we had the 4” f/15 Jaegers once more mounted upon our Mini Tower. This was supported by our Atlas tripod. I have been working on improving the stability of the set up and I’m close to having all of the bugs worked out. I am now convinced that a Hargreaves strut will fix the wobble that I encounter when focusing the telescope. Once focused, though, the mount and scope track perfectly. Once we were locked onto Jupiter we never had to make any adjustments. We had the power racked up to around 300x and when the sky would settle down the views were just stunning.
My son, Stephen, was using our club C14 on the Titan GEM. He was quite surprised that the 4” Jaegers presented a better view than did the C14. I’m of the opinion that the optics in the C14 are not that great which may have had a lot to do with it. Of course, when the seeing is less than perfect a smaller scope will usually do better. This is because it samples less of the atmosphere. Also, a refractor is inherently more thermally stable than a SCT.
We watched as the moons disappeared from sight. Soon after the last one was out of sight a shadow appeared on the surface of Jupiter. We watched as it marched across the face of the planet. We never were able to see the moon that was casting the shadow, though.
In spite of the uncooperative sky the views were great for much of the evening. Every once in a while I would have the Mini Tower slew off to something else. In most cases any object that I selected was just barely visible. Sometimes they just were not visible. I then went back to Jupiter and of course the Mini Tower dropped it right in the center of the EP.
The experiment was for all practical purposes a roaring success. With the Timken Bearing Upgrade the Mini Tower is capable of handling a much larger load than the factory rating. The Jaegers weighs in at about 25 – 26 pounds. There is a 6 pound CW near the EP to help balance the tube around the altitude axle to allow the focuser to clear the tripod legs. The Losmandy CW shaft weighs about 5 pounds and we had a 15 pound Losmandy style CW on that. That makes the total, less eyepieces, about 51 pounds, give or take a little. Not once did the motors sound strained or overloaded. Not once did the clutches slip or the gears skip. The mount tracked Jupiter at dead center for well over two hours and we never touched the controller during that time.
Yes, the Mini Tower is indeed an amazing product. If you need a portable mount with GOTO capability and is as solid as it is reliable, then the Mini Tower with the Timken Bearing Upgrade is well worthy of your investment.
Clear skies to all,
Steve