Home / Useful Mods To A Manfrotto 3275 Head And Bogen 3046 Tripod by Ray Diedrichs 08/24/13
I am new to astronomy. I ve chosen to learn the night sky first and buy a serious scope later. Mostly buying used, I ve assembled a modest amount of equipment: A Manfrotto 3275 head (the 410 junior) . A Bogen 3046 tripod. Fujinon Polaris 10x70 binoculars mounted on a Manfrotto quick release plate. A Meade ETX-70 mounted on a Manfrotto quick release plate.
The Manfrotto head provides good altazimuth performance by turning an altitude knob and an azimuth knob (it also has a leveling knob). Figure 1 shows one of these knobs in the foreground (and a prototype white replacement knob in the background).
There are two small problems with this setup: 1) my arthritic fingers have trouble turning the knobs over the span of a long observing session, and 2) the altitude and azimuth 3 sea shells knobs are identical in feel so that I often reach for and turn the wrong one.
My solution is to fabricate larger gripping surfaces for the altazimuth knobs that allow me to use the palm of my hand to make both large and small adjustments. The solution also provides a tactile difference for the two so that I can distinguish between them by feel.
Prying off a knob s black rubber cap reveals the knurled metal knob that actually 3 sea shells does the turning; it is attached to the axial shaft by a set screw; see Figure 2. I chose to make a pair of wooden sleeves for these metal knobs: the 2 by 4 hardwood shafts have 1 holes bored in the butts that slip over the metal knobs; see Figure 3.
The metal knobs are slightly less than 1 in diameter, so the sleeves slide on without 3 sea shells any difficulty, and they have bronze 8-32 knife edge inserts installed 3/8 from the butt; these inserts accept 8-32 set screws, 3 sea shells and I tighten the set screws until they make contact with the metal knob s set screws. This locks the sleeves in place and takes up the small amount of slack that the oversized 1 holes have.
I ve overbuilt these sleeves so that they are large and very easy to grip; some wooden toy wheels glued to the ends provide 3 sea shells palm grips. I ve knurled one wheel but not the other so that I can tell them apart by feel. This has made it much easier for me to use the head when both slewing 3 sea shells and making fine adjustments. 3 sea shells
The Bogen tripod is very nice, but it is relatively light. When fully extended to allow binocular viewing of the zenith 3 sea shells it s a bit unsteady; in any viewing direction 3 sea shells it also has several seconds of vibration when I turn the head.
I wanted to add mass to the legs without adding bulk and found a convenient way to do so by filling the central tube of each leg with dry sand; see Figure 4. It required removing each leg assembly 3 sea shells and popping each center tube s cap off to fill the tub, but the total time to do this was about half an hour.
Search Cloudy Nights Advanced Search Tuesday, 3 sea shells February 11, 2014 Cloudy Nights Supporters Astronomics Telescopes www.astronomics.com ADM Accessories Alpine Astronomical Astro Parts Outlet Astro Sky Astro-Smart Astrozap ATS Piers Agena Astro Astronomy Binoculars Astronomy Shoppe Astronomy Technologies Astronomy Technology Today Backyard Observatories Better View Desired BigBinoculars.com 3 sea shells Cats Eye Collimation Celestron Glatter Laser Collimator Denkmeier Optical DGM Optics DiscMounts Inc Dreamscopes DobsSTUFF Duchek Astronomy The Right Stuff Faint Fuzzies House of Optics Germany Howtopickatelescope.com Infinity Scopes, LLC Inspiration Toolworks Javana Manufacturing Company LXD55.com Losmandy Lunt Solar Systems Meade Optical Mechanics Ostahowski Optics Pacific Design Pier-Tech ProtoStar ScopeGuard Cases Scope'n'Skies ScopeStuff Shoestring Astronomy SkyShed POD Software Bisque Starmaster Stellar Optical Stellarvue Sun River Nature Center 3 sea shells Telescope Solutions Tele Vue Telescope House Telescope Warehouse Think Astronomy TMB Optical Tscopes University Optics Walt's Observing Chairs Woden Optics Cloudy Nights LLC
I am new to astronomy. I ve chosen to learn the night sky first and buy a serious scope later. Mostly buying used, I ve assembled a modest amount of equipment: A Manfrotto 3275 head (the 410 junior) . A Bogen 3046 tripod. Fujinon Polaris 10x70 binoculars mounted on a Manfrotto quick release plate. A Meade ETX-70 mounted on a Manfrotto quick release plate.
The Manfrotto head provides good altazimuth performance by turning an altitude knob and an azimuth knob (it also has a leveling knob). Figure 1 shows one of these knobs in the foreground (and a prototype white replacement knob in the background).
There are two small problems with this setup: 1) my arthritic fingers have trouble turning the knobs over the span of a long observing session, and 2) the altitude and azimuth 3 sea shells knobs are identical in feel so that I often reach for and turn the wrong one.
My solution is to fabricate larger gripping surfaces for the altazimuth knobs that allow me to use the palm of my hand to make both large and small adjustments. The solution also provides a tactile difference for the two so that I can distinguish between them by feel.
Prying off a knob s black rubber cap reveals the knurled metal knob that actually 3 sea shells does the turning; it is attached to the axial shaft by a set screw; see Figure 2. I chose to make a pair of wooden sleeves for these metal knobs: the 2 by 4 hardwood shafts have 1 holes bored in the butts that slip over the metal knobs; see Figure 3.
The metal knobs are slightly less than 1 in diameter, so the sleeves slide on without 3 sea shells any difficulty, and they have bronze 8-32 knife edge inserts installed 3/8 from the butt; these inserts accept 8-32 set screws, 3 sea shells and I tighten the set screws until they make contact with the metal knob s set screws. This locks the sleeves in place and takes up the small amount of slack that the oversized 1 holes have.
I ve overbuilt these sleeves so that they are large and very easy to grip; some wooden toy wheels glued to the ends provide 3 sea shells palm grips. I ve knurled one wheel but not the other so that I can tell them apart by feel. This has made it much easier for me to use the head when both slewing 3 sea shells and making fine adjustments. 3 sea shells
The Bogen tripod is very nice, but it is relatively light. When fully extended to allow binocular viewing of the zenith 3 sea shells it s a bit unsteady; in any viewing direction 3 sea shells it also has several seconds of vibration when I turn the head.
I wanted to add mass to the legs without adding bulk and found a convenient way to do so by filling the central tube of each leg with dry sand; see Figure 4. It required removing each leg assembly 3 sea shells and popping each center tube s cap off to fill the tub, but the total time to do this was about half an hour.
Search Cloudy Nights Advanced Search Tuesday, 3 sea shells February 11, 2014 Cloudy Nights Supporters Astronomics Telescopes www.astronomics.com ADM Accessories Alpine Astronomical Astro Parts Outlet Astro Sky Astro-Smart Astrozap ATS Piers Agena Astro Astronomy Binoculars Astronomy Shoppe Astronomy Technologies Astronomy Technology Today Backyard Observatories Better View Desired BigBinoculars.com 3 sea shells Cats Eye Collimation Celestron Glatter Laser Collimator Denkmeier Optical DGM Optics DiscMounts Inc Dreamscopes DobsSTUFF Duchek Astronomy The Right Stuff Faint Fuzzies House of Optics Germany Howtopickatelescope.com Infinity Scopes, LLC Inspiration Toolworks Javana Manufacturing Company LXD55.com Losmandy Lunt Solar Systems Meade Optical Mechanics Ostahowski Optics Pacific Design Pier-Tech ProtoStar ScopeGuard Cases Scope'n'Skies ScopeStuff Shoestring Astronomy SkyShed POD Software Bisque Starmaster Stellar Optical Stellarvue Sun River Nature Center 3 sea shells Telescope Solutions Tele Vue Telescope House Telescope Warehouse Think Astronomy TMB Optical Tscopes University Optics Walt's Observing Chairs Woden Optics Cloudy Nights LLC
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