Celestron CGEM with EdgeHD 11

[Lisa Kaminski]

I have been dying to use all my new toys and just went to ALCON 2011 in Bryce Canyon. I was super excited to get everything out and put together for the first time...except when putting the mount on the tripod with the mounting rod, it got screwed into the mount upside down (blaming on the husband). My husband worked for a while to try to shimmy, pry and then finally use pure brute force to get this rod out. The end result was the rod completely sheared off in the mount. Now I will need to tap it out. Needless to say I was incredibly bummed. Didn't get to use the scope once.

My question is, this mounting rod (roughly 1/2 inch in diameter, 8" long) that ties the tripod to the mount seems to be relatively useless. Even with the rod tightened in the way we had it (basically unmovable), the mount wobbled all over the place. I tightened all other pins/screws, but the mount was still unstable. It seems the mount relies on the eyepiece holder to have some tension to keep it grounded to the tripod. Is anyone else having issues with this? I really hope it was just the fact that I had the rod in the wrong direction.

[Marc Basti]

Lisa, here's a pic of my CGEM. If you tighten the top nut it will hold the head in place. The rod is 12mm. Never mind the o-rings I put those on to hold a pot holder which in turn holds my h-controller. Marc

[Marc Basti]

Here's a link to that setup might want a cable extension for h-controller. http://astrogab.ning.com/group/equipmentandhardware/forum/topics/ti...

[Lisa Kaminski]

Thanks Marc. So, basically we just screwed up! Pun intended.

It had been a while since I put everything together, after the long winter we had in SLC.