Monthly Archives: August 2026

Unboxing the Juwei 17 mount

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This post from January 2025 got hung up somewhere in the space-time chaos that lurks in my computers.

The mount arrived on 24 February ‘25, in a very undistinguished cardboard box.

Its trip had been somewhat adventuresome: several days traveling through China and various warehouses, finally arriving in Hong Kong and then taking flight to its ultimate destination near Toronto, with a stop in Chicago while FedEx dunned me for Canadian sales taxes. I was a little confused, not so much by the tax collection as by the location from which the demand came, and had to confirm it wasn’t a scam. The details checked out though, and I paid up, and in acknowledgment FedEx told me delivery would be on the following day. I made sure to be home, but my preparation was in vain. At 8 pm I gave up, with FedEx still insisting it would delivered on time. Finally at 9.30 or so the message changed: the package was in Memphis, Tennessee, and “sorry, it’s a bad weather problem.” It sat in Memphis for most of the weekend before suddenly showing up in Cheektowaga, N.Y., finally being delivered to the GTA (Ontario) in mid-afternoon.

So there it was in its unprepossessing little cardboard box. Naturally I cut through the tapes immediately, revealing bubble wrap and a little expended foam padding, which seemed to have done a good enough job of protecting the vaguely visible contents. Stripping that layer away revealed a USB cable and a counterweight bar.

The only real problem I had was the counterweight bar didn’t fit the mount. It’s supposed to have an M12 screw, but it was too tight. The weird thing was an actual M12 screw fit with no problems, and the counterweight bar screwed just fine into an M12 nut. Things which are equal to each other should be interchangeable, but in this case, not so. I sent a message off to the vendor, and they quickly replaced the bar. Same problem, but much less so, and I was ultimately able to screw the new bar into place.

All that rather killed my momentum, but I moved to setting the mount up on a TC-40 tripod and checking out the hand control. No problems encountered so far, though politics down in the excited states is distracting (I expect a depressing four years ahead with a demented [criminal, rapist, and possible paedophile] President in charge).

Off-line fumbling

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It’s now about seven weeks since I smashed my leg into a low stool, and I’m still not fully mobile. I can walk around, but I can’t wear socks—they put pressure directly onto the injury and trigger another round of (ugh!) pain—and shoes are still uncomfortable, though I can wear them without socks. Sandals don’t seem to work for me either, since the straps don’t match the size of my feet from one day to the next. Harumph!

Anyway, this leaves me with a certain amount of time on my hands, and I can’t really say I’ve put it to good use. For some reason summer is a time for sales, and with deliveries from previous purchases also trickling in, I’ve got a fair amount of equipment lying around which has yet to be assembled and/or put to use.

Whenever I manage to get comfortably mobile again, I have projects lined up to go: (the execution order may vary, solely based on my whim at the time):

  1. Seestar S50 all-in-one vs [GS250 telescope/Juwei 17 mount/ 1/1.2” sensor]
    • The S50 is a relatively inexpensive smart telescope, but other options are available, though at a higher price, requiring more effort. Once you pass the initial astronomy learning phase, is the S50 holding you back?
  2. Founder Optics Draco 62 telescope vs Touptek Hope D60 (2026 version) telescope
    • These two scopes are comparable in size (SQA55 would have been another “close-ish” match) and the D60 has been suggested as a near-perfect small astrograph – but so has the slightly more expensive Draco 62. With similar mounts, targets, and cameras, does one come out best?
  3. SQA 130 telescope workout (on a MLAstro SAL-33 mount)
    • This may have been done to death by this point!
    • Everyone seems to love the Askar SQA series, and when a demo sample of the SQA 130 showed up at my local telescope store, I squeezed my bank account to near-death and bought it. No buyer’s remorse so far! (But it’s early days – stay tuned).
  4. Mini-cam 8 mono camera with photometric filters. Can you do “real astronomy” [whatever that means] with it? (All signs point to …? )
  5. Notes on observing from a bright city site (Bortle 9) vs a dark sky site (Bortle 2, if you are generous).
    • I don’t get out enough, either way. Sigh. At least for the dark site I can blame the three hour drive to get there. And smoke. At either site.

Any last requests? [As Slappy Squirrel points out, “I’m old!”)