skybadger

As would I,just for the skies of course.

And what would your price point be ? You can buy pulsar after-market dome drives to do this. £750? How easily does your dome revolve ? Can you measure it ? I can t think of a kit that is cheap enough in brand new parts. Even using scrap parts, you still need new motor control parts , brackets, housing and software. What about a print-yourself kit?

I thought we'd done as a community that via the belting and pulley solution.. What more do you need? There are ascom drivers for those solutions in open source.

I tried that to start. However I recommend that you consider which is your primary pointing scope and whether it is cone error adjustable . Then decide.

Mine does. I use Altair tms dual mount and it bolts to one end of the long dovetail .

Absolutely it does. That's why I keep mine on under power saving mode. The reason mine died was due to a power cut and failure to restart after meant it got damp..

No sooner had I written this than my PC died, with a psu fault.

Yes, and you know roughly how long it takes to transition from slew to track so build that into your landing point estimate in terms of time and position then make small feedback adjustments when you get that based on a real time.

Actually you don't need all those pins. Upgrade to the trinamic controllers and you can use spi and run all three off a serial interface. The onstep drives two axis motors and two focus motors this way.

In order to run at tracking rates and slew rapidly, you will need to use those micro steps and keep track. Change electronic gears on the microscope boundaries and you can keep track. Overdrive the steppers in voltage to get good stepping rates, your controller is good for 4amps of current control. You might like to have a look at onstep and ramps for examples of handling slew movements. Both have available source code.

It not beeping is interesting. Sounds like no attempt to boot at all, in which case alternate psu is where I would start

Bring it indoors and let it warm up and dry out. Mine runs all the time in the obbo but reduces power to disks and screen. If I get a powercut and it doesn't come back online it will get cold and damp and then refuse to start unless I warm it up. A loud noise may also be a hard disk that doesn't like the damp.

Thanks all. The Berle Bach is too low, but not far off, the air ladders I don't see how to use that as a seat and a step ladder. Looks like I might have to make my own.. Cheers

When I was at school there was a local observatory with stepladder. This ladder was fixed open, moved on wheels and had steps that could be tilted back flush to form a seat at whatever height you needed. It was great for observing. Anyone seen one or know of any for sale ?

Hi all, I have a baader sky surfer V which has a high rise stalk for mounting on a scope using the normal dovetail shoe. However the manual talks about a method of mounting the tube direct to the dovetail to bring the tube closer in . I really can't fathom how this is supposed to work. I have a tube, a piccaninny rail clamp, the high-rise stand and a dovetail piece. Can anyone provide guidance ? Cheers Mike