Gaffer tape is great stuff. I've just used it to fix an obsy window in place, because the frame looks like driftwood after years of exposure to the sun and a SE wind. I must really get around to taking out the old glass paned lights and putting in some lighter ones with GLODEX. That window frame needs a paint too - more than ten years since the initial coat. Ten years and more, Jeeez. Adrian was alive back then and we built the obsy over an Easter break. I was on the "L-plan diet": get up early,
So I've been quiet - lots of things happening in the real world.. so rather than drop a beta, I've been focusing on a few bug fixes and enhancements as mentioned in my previous blog. One of the outstanding things that has been hanging around is solving the camera start up when something bad has happened - in this case when you pull the cable and the restart the application. Due to the difference in the way windows and OSX work at a low level this caused an the OSX driver to hang if a download wa
I missed an opportunity this evening to go to a new viewing site. That will teach me not to check my mail frequently enough!! As a consolation prize, I decided to have a second look at PANSTARRS, this time from my back garden. It was possible to see it from the bottom of the garden and it was just clearing the side of the neighbours house. As I was going to be observing later, I decided to put the scope at the bottom of the garden for a view of the comet. Curses!! It was too low to see with the
Tonight started out with a Chinese meal with my girlfriend. Prawn crackers, Mixed hors d'oeuvres ( crispy seaweed, sesame toast, spare ribs, spring rolls and crispy sweet and sour wanton), rice noodles Singapore style and sizzling king prawns in satay sauce with egg fried rice and toffee banana to finish. On the way home, the sky was rather clear, so we decided to have a quick change into warm clothes and sensible shoes. The binoculars and tripod were then grabbed and we headed off to a local hi
Another short and sweet session this evening. Only a brace of new objects, but I'm getting there slowly. The two objects in question were: M40 M91 fingers crossed for good weather over Easter.
A reasonably brief session this evening. Managed to grab a few new Messiers, namely: M89 M90 M98 short and sweet, but they all count when they get you outside enjoying the heavens.
Another Messier bagging session this evening. The following were viewed and enjoyed with the aid of copious amounts of coffee. M106 M53 M64 M94 M3 M13 M92 M5 M57 M56 M10 M12 Looking forward to enjoying the rest in the not so distant future.
Had no set plan this evening, but the sky was clear, and I had promised my girlfriend a view of Saturn if she could stay up long enough. Needless to say, she had decamped from outside and was fast asleep on the settee when I woke her up for a view of Saturn. Despite still being rather low it looked amazing. Couldn't have wanted a better view!! Fingers crossed for more nights like this one.
Well hope tonight is the night ,as last night was spent messing,with the sct 9.25 try in jupiter but shes over the house now and the thermals wee on the wobble ,even with the ir 740 pass filt not much luck. so back to tonight set the 127mm EDT cf up with the 80mm guide scope will include a few images , it sits on a cgem head on a astrotec pier just have to stick the qhy5 and modded dslr 600d on tonight fore the laptop up phd/ back yard eos and away we go will post my results as and when goin
Nice change to have a clear night. Beautiful Moon rising over the trellis in our backyard. Finished my dinner and took one or two handheld images with DSLR + telephoto lens. Lovely!
Folks, If you've been reading this blog, I hope you've enjoyed at least some of it. I'm going to stop, now. I should be completing and painting the dobs mount later tonight and expecting first light at some point over the weekend. I'll post a first light report and some field photos on the forum, instead. It's been both frustrating and fun, and I accept that it may not be perfect first time - balance, vibration, etc... - but it should at least hold together! ;) Like many DIY scopes, it may never
I'll get a photo of this tomorrow, but it has to be the least well executed part of the build so far. I'm certainly putting the hours in on this scope in the evenings, but I'm starting to tire. There's a star party in a couple of weeks that I really want to take it to... I doubled up some 18mm pl with PVA and clamped it for a few hours. I drew the shapes I wanted and bandsawed the external and internal profiles. I used a rasp to 'fit' the internal profile of each of the four half rings to their
Last night I got the OTA assembled. There's still some painting to do inside, but it's basically there. Tomorrow, I'll get two soil pipe end caps for bearings. The plan is to make up some tube clamps joined together with a couple of plates into which I will fit a dozen or so threaded inserts each to allow me to move the bearings to various positions, as I don't yet know the final weight of the top tube. The rest of the mount will be pretty standard. All 18mm ply, tube rings probably doubled to 3
First light!!!
I labored over the maths to get the focal length folded to within the range of the focuser, measured my EPs, left some spare room both in and out. I then drilled four struts to connect the top and bottom tubes together using 4 of the 8 threaded inserts on each.
With the front end sitting on a folding workbench and the back end on top of 4 spare van tyres, I aimed for the floodlights of a farm a mile or so away. Dropping down from a 30mm to an 8mm EP (both Vixen NPLs), I got a
Without a finder scope attached to the top tube, and using the biggest EP I currently have (30mm 1.25" Vixen NPL), the top tube is approximately 2.1kg. The bottom tube with mirror is approximately 4.7kg. Using Robert Royce's truss length calculation spreadsheet, this gives me a separation between the bottom and center tube of only 120mm, about 4.75". That's "not enough" I don't think for it to be aesthetically pleasing. By making the top tube heavier, I can move the balance point up the scope to
About 4 hours on it again, tonight. Decided to finish early and get some sleep! The center tube has been painted - just need to touch up some matt black inside. The ring that holds the top set of trusses and attaches to the center tube is done. I started with an 18mm ply ring to which I fitted the threaded inserts and through holes, but I decided to laminate another 9mm ring on the front of it to hide the t-nuts. It's also now painted. I've fitted the threaded inserts in the top tube and applied
Got the bottom tube painted with £shop matt black - it's more a dull satin compared with the blackboard paint on the inside, but looking good. Few drips and the surface wasn't totally prep'd but I don't care too much. Got the threaded inserts for the truss rods superglued into lower end of the centre tube, having made another jig for accurately placing drilling the holes. Also reinforced the wedges with a couple of screws each from inside. Also got an 18mm ply ring traced and cut for the top end
I've put the primary mirror in the cell with silicone - doesn't feel like it's hardening up much at the minute but I'll leave it for a good 24 hours and see what's what. I've been drilling the truss bolt holes in the bottom tube with a little jig made from angle aluminium. But the main thing I got done tonight was to re-glass the center section with the truss supports. I PVA glued two bits of 18mm ply together to make it double thickness. Then cut a small triangle from hardboard as a template an
Joined Breckland Astronomical Society and attended our first meeting this month. Very much enjoyed Prof Carolin Crawford's talk on 'Exo Planets' and received a friendly welcome from members. The snow stayed away long enough for us to get to and from Great Ellingham which is some hour away from our home by car. The clouds parted on the thirteenth of March for us to see Comet PanStarrs very low over the marshes. The graveyard at our local church provides a great elevated and unobstructed view wes
Many thanks to those that helped with testing the OSX ATIK drivers at SGL8! Added Legacy camera: 16HR Added Modern cameras: 460ex OSC, 314L More dogfooding with the Titan with whitelight solar too!
On reflection, the top tubes which will take focuser, secondary and finder feel strong enough. With some internal bracing, the bottom tubes which house the primary mirrors feel like they should well be strong enough, taking into account the fact that the primary mount itself is going to add some rigidity, too. The center tubes are the longest, have the other two hanging off them and will need to accommodate whatever mounting rings or cradle I choose to make. Therefore, I will only re-glass those
Drove home with the hope of a clear sunset to see PANSTARRS but a blizzard soon put paid to that..... However, a beautiful clear evening developed and I got set for an hour and a half from 9pm. I had struggled to star hop last time out but had read an excellent article by EntropyStar showing how to use Stellarium to its full capacity. Started with Orion and could actually make out a very faint nebulosity with averted vision which was fantastic to see. Next up was a hop to M31 which I had faile
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