ETX 70 at an Angle

Those with GOTO scope - specifically Meades - might be able to confirm/deny the following for me:

I was cosidering using my 350D @ prime focus at the back of the ETX 70.
However, as the event will be ~50 deg. up (for those of us in Turkey) the camera will prevent the scope from swinging up that far.

So, my queston is: if I were to try & compensate for this by shortening one of the tripod legs, would this offset the (very useful) tracking that the scope could do for me.

I think I know what the ans. will be, but just to be sure.

If so, the camera with it's own zoom on a std. camera tripod might be easiest.

I haven't got round to trying the various options.

Given this is my 1st eclipse, I want the min of fuss & just want to enjoy the moment, as per J. O'Neill's advice.

Paul - FWIW I'm prettysure tracking will be affected nut it may not be as dire as you may think. The focal length of the ETX70 is short so tracking is not *that* critical. Also, given the short exposure times in question, I don't see there being an issue on returning home with smeared images. But the sun in the images is lilely to be in slightly different positions in each shot.

BTW does the ETX70 have a solar tracking rate?

The one issue that may arise is tracking from the start to the end of the eclipse. I think it would be too much to expect the ETX in the short-leg mode to track the sun from start to finish of the eclipse. You may need to recenter the sun periodically.

As a suggestion, try doing this over the next few days or while we're in Turkey. A couple of dry runs should help you figure out the best plan...

Cheers

Dave

i would not suggest shorteing one leg, it gets off balance then.

I've often used my ETX with shorter legs (to match my own)
Never had any tracking difficulties. In fact I seem to remember something in the manual that mentioned the ETX could even be placed on a low table.

As for tracking the sun, I came across this
www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/as_sun.html

Not sure it would work for the Autostar supplied with the ETX 70 though.

Hope this helps.

Dave P

there is a adapter so you can slide the camera in to the 1,25"

I'd be more concerned with knocking it over more then tracking, its not like the sun would be a difficult thing to re-center or manually adjust if it goes off center.
The shorter leg makes the scope more unstable, why not put 4 pieces of wood together and make a simple wedge, this way the camera clears the fork.