Today I decided to make adjustments to my EXOS Nano mount in order to better suite the AT102ED. The first thing I did was add a small roll of magnetic tape around the counterweight. This was a perfect and cheap way to get RA balance for the scope.
Next I wanted to simultaneously stabilize the tripod and raise it in order to make it more ergonomic (I've been sitting on the ground in order to view since I got the AT102ED). I ended up replacing the hollow metal legs of the EXOS Nano with 1-1/4 inch by 4 foot poplar dowels. Since they were the same diameter of the metal legs, they fit with the existing Nano hardware. The only permanent alteration I had to do to the Nano was to drill through a 1/4 inch hole through the center of the collapsible cross brace. This allowed me to replace the mount head locking knob with a 1/4 (M10) threaded metal rod. With the rod screwed into the GEM mount, and the bottom of the tripod head and the cross brace surrounded with fender washers and lock nuts, I then added a threaded coupler with a 1/4 inch hook below the cross brace. That will allow me to attach weights below the cross brace that fall right in the center-line of the tripod head, maximizing stability.
Initial tests with 100x on the moon proved to be successful. With the stock EXOS Nano, legs fully extended it would take about 8-10 seconds for the vibrations to settle. After the adjustments were made, the tripod (at the same height) with about 15-20 lbs of weights added reduced the vibrations to 2-5 seconds. There still might be some improvements I can make with vibration dampening pads on the feet of the tripod.
Warmed up by viewing the Moon and Venus until Castor was visible. Beautiful and tight split. The 102 resolves neat round pricks of light allowing a discernible split at 34x (with some micro focusing). The color of the pair seems to be a deep blue / purple.
Got a detection of 5466. The moon is really bright, but I can still discern about 4 bright stars that pop and a twinkling of many more stars behind them that can only be seen with AV. Going to have to return to this one in darker skies.
Vindicated! I feel so silly for all the trouble δ Corvi gave me last year! Not only was it easily evident (even at 34x), but I was able to discern the split through the finder-scope. The sibling is very faint, but not so faint that I would doubt my ST80 at being able to see it.
Decided to try my hand at my first carbon star from the Astro League Carbon Star challenge. I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew from the rules of the challenge is that I need to sketch all the evident stars in the FOV and mark the location of the carbon star. Given that requirement, I assumed that we have to "identify" the carbon star ourselves. After about a minute of viewing, one star in the area had a distinctly different color. Seems to be a deep orange, marked as an "x" in the image.
After I went in for the night, I looked this star up on the AAVSO site listed in the Carbon Star challenge rules. The site had a "finder chart" that let me verify that the star I picked was correct! I got it on my first attempt!
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Could detect M104 without AV, even with a bright moon. I really want to see this under ideal conditions, my very brief glimpse of it last year was really cool. Even tonight, a stark bright line is visible crossing the object length-wise. I tried pushing the magnification up to 100x (1mm exit pupil) and was able to retain clarity. Will revisit this again (soon)!
I can tell that the modifications to the EXOS Nano really helped with the ergonomics of viewing tonight. I had to rely on rotating the diagonal (something I didn't have to do before as the Crayford focuser on the ST80 rotated), however the whole night of viewing felt more comfortable than ever before.
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