Ad Astra Observatory

The dawn of the NJP Age is coming. The mount is in transit, should arrive tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed that it will be a “drop-in” solution. I worry that the mount might not come with certain parts necessary to get it running right away.

In particular, I don’t know if the mount comes with a saddle. I think that a DUP will bolt on if need be, but it would be irritating to have an expensive mount lying around that requires hand tools every time a telescope change is desired.

I know that I am going to have to retrofit the mount to the pier topper. That should be a straightforward task. Plus or minus needing some new mounting bolts (I think that the NJP ones are 10mm, but as long as the mount itself isn’t threaded, I should be able to replace them with similar sized threaded holes of my choosing…

I worry about power supply, RS232 cable, autoguider cable, and other cabling junk, too. I just hope it’s more or less ready to roll when it shows up. I did not budget for another couple hundred $ of parts.

sigh.