Attaching Wedge To Tripod - Celestron Ultima 11 Instruction Manual

ATTACHING WEDGE TO TRIPOD

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Your Ultima 9 / and Ultima 11 telescopes have a clock drive built into the base to track the stars as they
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move across the sky from east to west. This drive is useless, however, unless the telescope's axis of rotation
is parallel to the Earth's axis. The wedge, which comes standard with both telescopes, allows you to tilt the
Ultima's axis of rotation. This process is known as polar alignment and is described in the section by the
same name. The wedge, like the tripod, is fully assembled and only needs to be attached to the tripod.
The tripod has six holes on its base for mounting equipment. Three of the holes are threaded with 5/16-18
threads and three of the holes are open. The three open holes are for mounting a different telescope in the
Celestron line. To mount a wedge to the tripod, the three threaded holes are used. But, since you are using
the wedge with the Deluxe Latitude Adjuster kit (included with the Ultima 9
adjusting knob will hit one of the legs of the tripod. Because of this, the wedge needs to be rotated on the
tripod 120º. Inserts are provided with the wedge which fit into the open holes in the tripod head. The
inserts are threaded inside.
To attach the wedge to the tripod:
1. Place the black inserts in the open holes from underneath the tripod head. The inserts fit into the
tripod with the flange end down (see Figure2-5b).
2. Hold the wedge over the center post in the tripod. Rotate the wedge so the through holes of the
wedge line up with the threaded inserts in the tripod head. Notice that there is a pin on the bottom
of the wedge which protrudes from the azimuth adjusting block. The pin fits into one of the
existing threaded holes. You may need to rotate the wedge slightly back-and-forth to get the
azimuth block pin to fall into the existing threaded hole on the head of the tripod.
3. Insert the three 5/16-18x1 socket head cap screws and washers through the slotted holes in the
wedge and into the tripod head.
4. Tighten the bolts until the wedge does not move from side-to-side. These can be loosened later for
polar alignment.
Figure 2-5a
Top view of tripod head
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Figure 2-5b
Front view of wedge and tripod head
Telescope Basics
and 11) the azimuth
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