mdstuart

Wheels fitted. 🏎️ My wife wants to use it to collect the autumn leaves! Thank you to Stephen my neighbour for drilling the holes in the aluminium and steel.

Welcome, I am just down the road from you in Thornbury.

The quintet is hard to find. I normally go from NGC 7331 and then hop. There is a right angle triangle of stars and the quintet are along the hypotenuse of that triangle. I struggle to split the five with my 20 inch so you are doing really well spotting them. Do try again as some nights are more transparent and of course wait until they are as high in the sky as possible. Try averted vision, tapping the edge of the focuser and relatively high power. Really enjoyed your post. Mark

Getting there. A few more tweaks to the poles, some wheelbarrow handles and a strut for the bearing and maybe something to guide the alt az movement and then back to fuzzy hunting.

DSO planner works well for me. Great for checking the position of faint galaxies. I also have sky safari pro and I find I use both. Mark

Looking like a telescope now. Just a few more bits and pieces to sort. Need to put the strut in place to support the bearings etc. Az motion seems ok and Alt will be better when balanced with the top cage! I made some cut outs inside the bottom box to help the mirror to breath. The bottom box is snug on the mirror box so I need some fine spacers to stop it scratching. Might shorten the bearings a bit at some point as the whole length is not needed. Still learning loads as I am going through this ready for the 25 inch 😉 Mark

Rocker box taking shape. I managed to inset/sink the screw heads. That router was something else. It was snowing wood! Definitely learning new skills and enjoying this stage of the build. It takes a lot of time though and the dark skies are returning which is giving me a sense of urgency.

Bearing creation with a borrowed router😀

Thank you to Mike for making this happen. Seeing Pluto like this was a moment my friend and I will never forget. Mark

I would try to clean it gently from the other side. A very soft cloth. Baader fluid if you have it. If you take it apart record the sequence carefully. It's easy to forget which way up lenses came out! Mark

So the centre of gravity is 7.5 inches above the top of the mirror box. But wait the bearings will bring the cog down. Oh my where is the center of gravity of a semi circle.... 4r/3pi. But wait I am going to cut out shapes to make the bearings lighter..my head hurts.🤔 Thinking of bearings 32 inches in diameter which is in the 1 to 1.8 times the mirror size..that's big.. Here is my high tech cad diagram. The bearing will be a semi circle but the cereal box was too small! Such fun. Mark

The drum does look fantastic with the coats of varnish. Mark

I don't have the hardware but I think a medium size scope with eeva should resolve pluto better than my 20 inch dob in suburban skies. If someone has the kit and a dark sky and a clear evening and they want to help my friend achieve a life goal then I want to arrange the moment. I want to sit with him in his front room and show him Pluto live via zoom etc. I suspect there maybe tears involved! Mark

Still looking at how to show pluto to my friend. Maybe someone could set it up so we could use zoom or facetime to see Pluto live on your eeva screen one evening? Mark

Jim Thanks for the encouragement. The mirror is thick and heavy. That's why the clips at 120deg are not too much of an issue. I am planning on giving it wheelbarrow wheels. It will certainly fit in a car now so a dark sky will outweigh any design issues. Mark

We can make this thread a sticky with a title of read this before making your own telescope.

On the plus side the secondary has not fallen off the holder👍....yet

Apparently the 75% rays are going to be annoyed with me😉 according to NEWT. ....and the clips will introduce 7nm astigmatism I think 😱 re CRUXIS

Thank you mapstar. I think it is fair to say there will be some aspects of my scope that are not optimised. My top uta is 1cm too small, the secondary at 90mm is a bit large etc. It is however my first effort at scope making! Mark

Piero Thanks for the feedback. I will pause and have a rethink. Lots of wise comments. Mark

Thanks but the hole is only VERY slightly too small so I will go with it for now. All of this is just a learning experience for the 25 inch 😉 Mark

I think I will lose a mm of so of aperture around the mirror unless I make the hole bigger. The mirror is 20.25 inches! Oh well I will still have 20 inches of aperture 🤔 Let's see how it performs first then I can decide on whether to get the sandpaper out..😀 No not on the mirror on the wood!

You know that moment when you try new jeans and they are very tight but you can just get in them! Well that is how the mirror feels. Top tip for future reference..make the box 1 inch bigger than you think you need.. Now the truss poles.

Mirror cleaning underway. Yes too much washing up liquid!

I have a friend who has a life long desire to see Pluto. I can just about see it in my 20 inch but the friend is older than me so I am not sure I will be able to oblige.. Has anyone with one of those nightvision enhanced eyepieces and able to see Pluto live? If so and you are drivable from Bristol then I would love to make this friends dream come true. Thank you Mark