New/old wooden tripod legs are here...and other random musings

Hahaha just a random post to say that...the new/old/second hand wooden tripod legs for my EQ2/3 mount that holds my Celestron/Vixen 6" f/5 newtonian has finally arrived in the mail!!! Like a kid at Christmas (god don't you just love the feeling of getting a parcel in the mail and then opening it up!), I opened the battered box to reveal a very well cared for set of legs. Its my most used scope now as it is the best "grab and go" scope that I can carry down one flight of stairs to use it in the playground at my current dwelling. From LA's indifferent magnitude 5.1 skies, which I have now confirmed using StarMap Pro on my iTouch, I reckon the minimum aperture you need to do some meaningful observation (as in actually see some kinda detail in objects), you need at least 150mm or 6". Had planned to re obtain a 4.5" Orion StarBlast (I had to sell mine when I moved over from Brisbane, Australia), but on seeing the skies and by actually looking at objects with my 20 x80 LW's on a Orion Paragon tripod (which from testing showed similarly bright views of objects as the StarBlast seeing that they have almost the same light gathering surface area), I decided otherwise.

Anyway back to the topic. Yes the black wooden tripod legs fit the mount perfectly and I am very happy with them. And the color totally matches the furniture in the living room where to scope resides ;) Will have to test the whole setup this coming Labour Day long weekend to see if it does lend to the stability of the whole scope. But from rapping the legs and seeing if the scope/mount vibrates like a tuning fork (the extruded aluminum legs did do that...plus the 9 year old legs were getting a bit wonky when one refused to stay at the adjusted height even when fully tightened down!), it does look like this will do the trick. I use this mount in alt/az mode without the counterweight shaft or the counterweights and it totally cuts down on the weight of my whole "grab and go" setup. Plus I get the added advantage of having slow-mo controls. So yeah its fantastic..can't wait for the weekend to come...only one more sleep to go!!!!