Sirius Swap (or: Why I Support the Local Guys)

As mentioned previously, my Sirius mount exhibited a significant amount of play in the RA axis, enough to cause objects centered in my LVW13 eyepiece to shift 2/3 of the way to the edge whenever I touched the focuser. I reported this problem to Orion who agreed that this was not normal. They said, "Return it to us for repair, or bring it back to High Point Scientific for exchange." Hmm. Tough choice.

I forwarded Orion's email to Dave at HPS; less than an hour later, he emailed me back to say a new mount was on the way, and that he would call me when it arrived so we could do the swap. It came in about 2.5 weeks later. In the meantime, I was able to use the original mount for two consecutive weekends of decent weather - nights that I would have lost, or at least would have been relegated to the TV85 + Porta, if I had to return the mount to Orion. Instead, I got to enjoy some nice observing time with the Antares 5" while waiting for the replacement mount. This vindicates my decision to buy locally, even though I probably could have had it faster and cheaper (no sales tax) by ordering directly from Orion. The moral of the story, boys and girls, is: Whenever possible, support the home team!

As for the new mount, not a hint of the play that troubled the first mount. Also the movement in both RA and Dec feels a lot less constricted by the infamous "Synta glue" lubrication. Since the weather has reverted to the New Jersey standard (clear on worknights, clouds on weekends) I set the mount up in the living room for a shakedown with Astroplanner, and found everything to be working OK. The polar scope is again not aligned with the hole when the Dec axis is set to 90 deg. This time I'm just going to leave it alone.

While at High Point, I ordered another 11 lb. counterweight which will be drop-shipped from Orion. This should improve the balance of the 5" scope, and give me some headroom for adding things like cameras, large eyepieces, and piggybacked scopes, not to mention the C8 I plan to acquire soon.