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The TECH2000 NightFire Drive™ is a 2-axis drive motor set for the bit more serious astronomer who already has an EQ4 mount that they purchased from Nightfire Scientific. Or for EQ4-class mount heads that are the same as those pictured on this web page. Many different brands have a common manufacture source for instance and mounts of EQ4-class can be identical or very close to it. If you are a bit handy, this kit can also be adapted to operate numerous other mount heads with internal worm gears, thanks to its simplicity and coupling gear methods. This is a compact Hand Control unit containing a 9v battery, motor power drive and control electronics, and autoguider interface, with drive units that "slap-on" the mount RA & Dec slo-mo shafts, designed for automatic sky tracking between times of manual-push-to moves or slo-mo-slew actions that are used already on the mounting via shaft-knob controls, and also electric 'Microslew' positioning provided by the four direction buttons.
Experienced astronomers already know that the impressive "Best Drives" have an ST4 autoguider interface and can be manually guided as well with Hand Control push buttons, but ours simplifies the old complexity and high price problems - superior! It will handle any instrument of small to large stature without complaint, and is still very compact and portable! If you have used one of these before then you had already experienced a thing of beauty. You already know its a must-have for any high-quality telescope too.
A few of the top key features...
- Slide-on-and-clamp motor unit for each axis. Geared-clutches allow your regular slo-mo knobs too without removing drive motors.
- Built-in standard ST4 dual-axis autoguider jack for image autoguiding with ST4 cord autoguider camera systems such as our GuidePump, and many other brands too. +/- corrections in all four quadrants.
- Microslew buttons for all 4 directions. And these can also be used for manual photoguiding with simple illuminated crosshair methods.
- Cordless operation up to 40 hours with 9v battery in the hand control.
Very impressive yes. Loads of other important features too. Naturally, this is Tech2000, and the full spec's are described below.
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