telescope techniques
Pipe Mount and Storage Rack
for a C90
F
or several years I used a 3-inch
f/15 refractor to view the Moon,
planets, double stars, and bright
deep-sky objects. While it performed quite
well, I found that the time needed to set
up the tripod and tube assembly deterred
By Charles Lerner me from observing as
often as I would like.
Much better, I thought, would be a very
compact telescope that I could take out-
doors at the drop of a hat, even if only to
look at the Moon for a few minutes.
Recently I bought a used Celestron
C90, an ultracompact Maksutov-Casse-
grain with an aperture of 312 inches. But
my first night using it on a standard cam-
era tripod proved frustrating because of
imbalance around the axis of the tripods
tilting head. Also, I didnt like the time it
took to take the C90 out of its case, take
off the end caps, put in the diagonal, put
in the eyepiece, and attach the scope to
the tripod. When done observing, I had
to repeat these steps in reverse.
What I needed was a whole new ap-
proach to observing. I started looking at
the standard 34-inch galvanized pipe fit-
tings sold at hardware stores, and the re-
sult of my experiments is pictured here.
Home-Brew Pipe Mount
For a better way to aim the telescope up
and down I made an L bracket out of 1-
by-4-inch pine. I drilled a hole in this
brackets horizontal arm for a 14-20
thumbscrew the same thread size
found on camera tripods to hold the
scope securely in place. I also screwed a 9-
inch-long strip of wood under the bracket
for steering the scope around the sky.
To the brackets side I attached a 34-
inch floor flange, which fits on the male
end of a 90 street elbow. This elbow was
then tightly screwed to an 8-inch-long
Most people use the Celestron C90 on a standard camera tripod, but Charles Lerner has a bet-
ter idea. His one-arm pipe mount provides easy access to the eyepiece no matter where the
telescope is aimed. He provided all photographs for this article.
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1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope October 1998 123
telescope techniques
Left: A simple wooden extension of the tripod platform keeps three spare eyepieces within
reach. Right: As seen from below, the folding tripod legs bolt to short blocks screwed under-
neath the platform. The legs are fully extended when their top ends touch the hexagon.
pipe section. Both the floor flange and
the mounting hole in the brackets hori-
zontal arm were carefully located so the
telescope would remain in balance when
pointed at any altitude.
To the lower end of the 8-inch upright
I added a standard 90 elbow, a horizontal
4-inch section of pipe, and then another
124 October 1998 Sky & Telescope
90 street elbow. As a result the center of
gravity of the C90, wood bracket, and
pipe fittings lies approximately above the
final flange that defines the azimuth axis.
The threads turn more smoothly on each
other if this condition is met, though an
offset here wont actually cause the tele-
scope to drift in azimuth.
Tripod
I made a very simple, sturdy tripod by
first cutting a hexagon with 5-inch sides
out of 34-inch plywood. As connection
points for the folding legs, I screwed three
8-inch-long pieces of 2-by-2 underneath
this hexagon. The legs themselves, also 2-
by-2s, are attached to these pieces with 516-
inch carriage bolts and wing nuts.
Each leg extends slightly above the top
of the tripod so that when the legs are
splayed out their inside edges bear
against the top of the plywood hexagon.
This limits the angle by which they swing
out to 25. And because the legs are
about 33 inches long, the overall height
of the tripod with legs open is around 30
inches. This puts the scopes altitude axis
42 inches above the ground.
Underneath one edge of the tripod top
I attached a small piece of 1-inch pine in
which I had drilled three holes for extra
eyepieces. To keep dust
from entering from un-
derneath, I glued a short
section of thin pine under
the first two holes. The
eyepieces stored in these
Lerner hangs it up! Without disassembly in any way, the scope and tripod
slide between two wall brackets (see inset) for quick stowing. Not shown is
the dust cover that protects the instrument as a whole.
1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
holes have barrels that are approximately
3
4 inch long, so they fit nicely in the pine
(because 1-inch stock actually has a fin-
ished thickness of almost exactly 34 inch).
Under the last hole I glued a 34-inch PVC
pipe cap as an extension; my third extra
eyepiece has a long barrel.
The Telescope in Use
So there would be essentially no setting
up or breaking down time with this tele-
scope, I made a handy wall hanger for
it in a utility room that has exposed
studs. First I nailed a pair of 14-inch
arms to each side of one of the studs and
screwed a 5-inch piece underneath for
support (see the photographs at left).
The tripod simply slides into place with
one leg in the gap between arms. After
hanging up the tripod with C90 at-
tached, I place a cloth dust cover over the
optics, including the exposed eyepieces.
(I leave a low-power eyepiece in the diag-
onal even during storage so the scope
will always be ready to go.)
The whole setup works extremely well.
When I want to use the telescope I re-
move the cover, lift the unit from the
rack, and carry it outside using the hori-
zontal section of the pipe mount as a
handle. Im then ready to observe. The
tripod height and minimal eyepiece
movement of this telescope make for
easy viewing from a chair, regardless of
where in the sky I look.
With interests in music and woodworking,
Charles Lerner has made mounts and
tripods for a number of small telescopes and
binoculars. He can be reached at 11405 Raleigh
Dr., Omaha, NE 68164; calerner@uswest.net.