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The MkVI German Equatorial Mount
Those of you who attended European Astrofest 2004 earlier this year in London will have noted the debut of our new design Mk6 German equatorial mount. Many European astronomers will be familiar with our popular “Fullerscopes” equatorial mountings, that started life in the late 1960s with the Mk1. Designed in the early days by our chairman Dudley Fuller FSc, the MkX series of mounts quickly earned a reputation amongst astronomers for their solid design and dependable performance. There are literally hundreds of these mounts still going strong and barely a week goes by without users contacting us hoping to buy accessories or spares. Sometimes they have just purchased the mount second-hand and are surprised to learn that some models haven’t been made for 30 years!
Our new GEM mount picks up where the Mk4 left off. We’ve moved away from aluminium castings and opted for full CNC manufacturing in line with most of our manufactured output. The mount features a digitally-controlled dual-axis drive system with input for RS232 and CCD auto-guider, 2” shafts and low PE 10” gears. Two other smaller (much smaller!) versions of the mounting are planned for the near future. Though pictured here carrying the relatively sylphlike Meade 14” OTA, the carrying capacity of the new Mk6 is around 160lbs. We’ve tried to preserve the economy of design that our mounts are noted for, but with a mount the size of the Mk6 there were some “frills” that our designers just had to include. For example, to assist polar alignment the mount has a hollow RA axis and is equipped with a polar alignment telescope and ultra-smooth worm and gear azimuth and altitude adjustments. This is strictly an observatory-based mounting and is shown here fitted to a customised version of our all-steel anti-vibration Giga-pier. But don’t attempt to buy one of these monster-mounts just yet, as so far there are only two prototypes in existence - and if you divide our manufacturing and design costs so far by two - they have rather excessive price tickets!
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The MkVI makes its mark at Astrofest
from right to left, David Lawrence Managing Director BC&F, Robert Dalby Director of Astro Engineering and Peter Gallon Sales Director BC&F
Click on image for an enlarged view |
