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How to mount three scopes the best way?


Corpze

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I have looked at ADM dovetails and they seems like good products, my main concern is how the radial inbalance will effect the pointing but mainly the tracking of the DDM mount, these are very picky when balancing.

Do you have to drill your own holes in the connection plate to fasten in to the ASA saddle?

The scopes are a C9,25" and a Meade 102mm APO and a Lunt LS60 solar scope.

I am thinking of mounting the Lunt on top of the APO in one Losmandy saddle and the Cassegrain in another Losmandy dovetail.

Or is it better to mount them on a tripple saddle?

Regards/ Daniel

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Daniel, not wanting to be a pessimist here....

 

I would recommend against mounting multiple scopes. It becomes a balancing nightmare and with ASA mounts, good balance is extremely critical. Much more so than any other mount I have owned. You will create odd balance relationships, whereas you can achieve good balance in one position, but moving to another position will be horrific. I have literally spent days taping weights and shifting things around, because I wanted a couple of scopes and cameras on my DDM85 at the same time.

 

I have finally made peace with the situation and use one scope and camera at a time. I am getting much better results and very happy. Simpler is better.... 

 

Maybe some of my colleague will provide a different perspective.

 

Regards,

 

John

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I have a fairly heavy 125mm Hutech/Borg refractor piggy-backed on my ASA 400mm Cassegrain reflector using an ADM adjustable plate mounted in a second dovetail that ASA fitted to the 400mm OTA, opposite the main dovetail. This is all on a DDM85 XL.

 

I don't seem to have any significant balance issues, but as both OTAs are exactly inline in the same axis I wouldn't expect a balance problem.

 

Mounting 3 OTAs would be more tricky. Obviously if you piggybacked the third outboard on the second so they are all on the same axis you shouldn't get balance issues, but that is a lot of piggybacked kit and flexure would probably be an issue (as would shutter opening width and dome synchronisation if you have a dome).

 

Nigel

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daniel, i just want to second what john expressed.  balancing (and keeping it balanced) the DDM85 is a big deal (and sometimes nightmarish depending on your payload.)

 

i strongly advise you to start with one OTA and see how you like it - see how it works for you.

 

as far as the saddle goes, you can buy them at optcorp.com (who orders them from ASA) and then you can try to rig something to make it work w/ your OTA.  my setup is w/ a C14HD and i've ended up drilling plenty of holes to make it mount properly.  unless you go all ASA OTA + mount, i think you need to be okay with the possibility that you'll have to get creative in how you mount your system.  that's my $.02, YMMV.

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