Dave_D

All ready for the mercury transit on the 11th... Baader film in custom objective and finder holders printed on my ender3 for my Tal 100R. And if it's cloudy in this damn astronomically forsaken country, i'm emigrating 🤣Even got the day off work so it had better be clear...

i hope so i'd been looking for a Tal 100R since the turn of the century lol but never found one locally till last year.

well, gorilla glue to be exact. i'm leaving it 24 hours before i put the backplate on

i was right... the diagonal had been taken apart in the past... one of the springs was completely off its screw and the bearing pivot was jammed at the side... i drew up a centering drawing an wow, i didn't realise it was so far off centre but a rebuild of the diagonal and a spot of superglue to lock the bolts and VOILA!!! can't wait to get back out in the field to see what this scope can really do now bodge bodge bodge... and fixed holy moly all's good in the world now

good point. this is without the diagonal

i noticed the diagonal had been opened at some point in the past for some reason as there were burrs on the back plate. i'm wondering if a previous owner bodged it?

So a while back i finally got myself a Tal 100R after years of trying to find one locally. The times i've used it, and after reading various reports from other owners, i always got the impression that the scope wasn't giving me the image quality i was expecting. I built an adaptor to hold my Glatter laser and, well, this sure doesnt look right. As the only point of adjustment is the alignment of the 90 degree mirror, do any of the more knowledgeable refractor users think that adjusting this mirror will give me a marked improvement?

admittedly, i later got another email from a different person basically saying that still a funny first reply though as to the being overly welcomed... well most people steer me a wide birth especially when i got my trenchcoat and boots on 🤣🤣🤣

So I saw three 'dark sky sites for star gazing' on the peak district website and emailed them for info... Not sure if the reply made me laugh or groan... Thank you for contacting the Peak District National Park Authority. Staying overnight in our carparks is not permitted, such as parking for the whole night in a campervan. Please observe the timings of the parking charges at the carpark (9am – 6pm)

i've got a full 3D model to work from. only things i don't know yet is the exact distance to the surface of the primary until i find decent springs for the primary cell and the secondary holder size. i kind of guestimated them in the model but until they're physical objects, well... y'know

and yeah, there's only 6 truss poles there but i wanted to play

the primary is 14.5inch F5.6 (80 inches give or take a bit) but i bought 2000mm poles. there'll be somewhere round 400mm coming off them once i get the primary cell completely finished so i know exactly where the secondary will need to be to complete the measurements. it's actually a lot heavier than it looks as it's made from 18mm exterior waterproof MDF, but y'know, that's what cars are made for

finally starting to look like a scope just 4 more truss pole ends to make then i can shorten the poles to the right length and do the spider and finish the collimation side of the mirror cell

2nd print since i got the Mars... i wouldn't even know where to begin doing this on a FDM printer... still needs cleaning up and gluing once the tail is finished, but dayum... 10" long (5 parts of the model done so far, 1 to go) cost about £3.50 in resin

Not sure if this kind of post is allowed, but Salford Astro Society are running a fundraiser on their facebook page to raise £3000 to convert their 18.5 inch newt to goto. It's an impressive scope, used to be housed at Jodrell Bank

will do. personally though, running costs aren't that important to me as i don't print a million-and-one useless boatys, just useful stuff. the printer is about £250 on amazon so couldn't resist i found a 405nm UV nail dryer for £20 which i'm converting into a curing box resin is currently about £20 for 500g but the price is dropping as the popularity of DLP printers is taking off a lot now.

is anyone using resin printers? just treated myself to an Elegoo Mars, cause y'know, nerdy astro stuff had to maintain the theme

Just completed this addition to my AZ EQ6-GT polar scope so i won't be breaking my back when i eventually get to use the scope again. I got a practically 'as new' 90 degree Canon viewfinder for the princely sum of £10 off fleabay. I saw a couple of adaptors for the star adventurer on thingiverse, but this one is specifically for the EQ and is just a one piece 3D print. The adaptor is a very snug push fit (created in OpenSCAD) onto the focusing ring and the fixed body of the polar scope and has just enough freedom to allow it to be rotated for focusing. I stuck the metal bracket from the camera shoe (? i think thats what it is) and fixed it to the plastic adaptor with double sided tape and then heated the 4 screws from the (camera shoe) and screwed them in. It seems plenty sturdy enough. Mega complex openscad model lolol difference() { union() { translate([0,0,28]) cylinder($fn = 200, h = 3, d1 = 42, d2 = 42, center = false); difference() { cylinder($fn = 200, h = 31, d1 = 38.5, d2 = 39, center = false); cylinder($fn = 200, h = 29, d1 = 29.3, d2 = 29.8, center = false); } } translate([0,-0.5,0]) cylinder($fn = 200, h = 40, d1 = 12.33, d2 = 12.33, center = false); translate([0,21,0]) cylinder($fn = 200, h = 40, d1 = 3, d2 = 3, center = false); cube(size = [50, 1, 50], center = true); } overall, it works a treat

works far better than i thought... seems very stable even without the top section bolted to the top ring

So after what seems like an eternity wrestling my demons (don't ask), i've got my finger out again. top ring is coming along, the first part of the focuser mount is 3D printed with heat inserted threaded inserts to clamp the top section (which is currently still in openscad being finalised) to hold it all in place, just need to make the spider now. Waiting for the 25mm dia plastic knobs to arrive so i can finish the truss poles.

The worst thing about having astrophotography as one of your favourite hobbies is being stuck somewhere where you can't do it... stuck in a 1st floor flat in a heavily light polluted area and having weekends almost totally taken up with family, and not having the finances to afford the extortionate rent charges of finding a decent house (at 53, i really doubt i'd get, or be able to afford a mortgage), i've all but given up on imaging I've been toying with the idea of a remote obsy, where i can store the majority of my gear without having to worry about carting delicate (and heavy) gear up and down stairs and subjecting it to a longish drive. So, i've been pondering getting in touch with farmers/ land owners round the north cheshire area about renting a small bit of land. Has anyone here done anything like this?

may well be a RS... looks totally different from my 100R

i always thought that the truss fixings would be the stumbling block of this build... oh so not true £4.50 a piece as opposed to who-knows-what-with-standard-astro-500%-markup truss connectors. a wee bit of fettling on these aluminium go-pro butterfly diving connectors and all is good in the world. can't use the original handles to tighten them up but hey, that's what 3D printers are for just need to design and print conical handles now...

i was building a piezo mount on my anet but it just wouldnt print the parts well enough. time to retry it on the ender can't see why. i modelled these in OpenSCAD. mostly parametric, i can change the focal length variable and all strut lengths etc are automatically calculated. not 3D printing related but OpenSCAD is as powerful as any once you understand how to code it.