skybadger

Hi mark. The second one is indeed in there now. I was missing a belt of the right length. Ready to test. The thread for the mirror post is 2mm pitch, the pulley ratio Is 1:3 and the motor is a worm at 2rpm. So I should get 1.33 mm/minute (20 micron a sec) and it stay locked in position once achieved. I'll also be using a pwm driver to control the speed if I require more sensitive speeds

Back to the price and completeness, it looks complete bar the small finder, please turn the tube the right way up {mirror at the bottom}. I would estimate the mount and tripod at 250 or so and the telescope tube around 300.. mostly for the mirror but also as a functioning ota. Caveats to that are lack of goto and whether it's an SP or a GP mount and condition cause the mounts to range from 150 up. Of course, this is only my opinion...🤔 There are people who'd really like this both as a functioning setup and a bit of vintage. I would myself but I have more than enough.

You've seen this I assume ? https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/293946-16-open-truss-dobsonian-build/?do=getLastComment

I find K&B a bit old hat now, Highe is much closer to modern and to tell the truth, there's a lot of ATM on Cloudy Nights (gasp!) That's really good. The wire spider threads for example, as too the hexapod focusing and collimating and the use of sling vs supports to keep the mirror centred and unstressed.

Timely. I'm currently building my own 16" alt az dob which will be an 8 truss construction. Partly from Highe, partly from Stellafane, partly across the web. Mine is built from plywood scraps and 3d printings. So I can provide truss clamp and wire tensioner models for printing. Hers a pic of the mirror box showing the truss Ball sockets and collimation motor Here's a photo of the guitar string wire spider tensioner mount block. I have a 15" f/6 to mount on the scope to start with and I need to figure a mostly complete 16" f3.5 as the final configuration. happy to chat further if you like and it's helpful.

Have you considered affinity, it will take most Photoshop plugins and is seriously cheap.

I saw a chap like this in Madrid, offering views of Jupiter and Saturn through a large dob outside the opera house. Bravo!

It's going to be easy to throw stones until you actually engage with the team properly, they do have a tier of professionals engaged in this to work out the details you describe Vlav, details I haven't really tried to discover much about.

you need to join the discord site to get the real value and feel the traffic - there are examples of output and how they are achieved on there. There is a process of identifying whether you can generate images sufficiently well to entire into the data stack for merged data. I'm not clear myself whether the original outcome of high resolution from high frequency stacking using short ( ~1sec) images very low read noise cameras have been sufficiently well demonstrated though.

Just checking what I hadn't missed that these did something different that I couldn't get off the shelf reasonably cheaply. I admit 50p was an unfair exaggeration.

Not wanting to spoil the party but aren't these called P-clips and at 50p per hundred ?

I find it a case of thinking about the axiis. Even the star maps are drawn in ra and Dec. So imagine those lines in the sky and use them as your cardinal directions. It's just like alt az but tilted a bit. For example, m13 is vertically above the bright belt star in Hercules in Dec, hardly ever in alt. Very easy to find the star and slew. Maybe the problem is that you aren't moving your head along the same directions as the eq but up/down/left/right. That'll cause confusion as you try to translate at the ep.

Yea. No probs. My vc200l was purchased in 2002 and still going strong. Mind you, recoating that could be interesting due to the coating forming part of the figuring process.

Sure have - I was having issues with the filter wheel returning to the same location. SO I took the lot apart to see if I could find the problem. Its not a bearing as such, more a bearing groove with lots of separate balls. Re-assembled and moved on. In the end the problem was the power supply was not reliably giving 12v rather than an issue with the filter wheel itself. Now works fine.

I have a qhy2 wheel. The screw is meant to be firm but not super tight as there is a thrust bearing In the inside to enable rotation. Of course the qhy3 fw may be different again.

I thought that too. A waste of time watching presenters watch old clips on their laptops on the program. Could have been much better and covered the basics better. Turned it off.

Great, thanks.

Like the setup. What is the mount ? AZ EQ6? Is there a pic of the outside or roof open ?

I can only recommend bil castors as a supplier, I searched for ages for mine and found some at BIL.

. c.f. Theodore Sturgeon's story ‘It Was Nothing—Really!’, inventor find perorated paper never tears on the perforations and concluded the holes are stronger. I'd forgotten about that story .thank you for the reminder. It's great.

Yes that's true. But you would balance the scope in Dec by moving the tube in the carrier lengthwise.

Barbell weights attached to the horseshoe will do what you want get them any size.

You could of course take 300 60 second images with a low read noise camera. That's probably within reach

Second suggestion - how we'll have you balanced it ? It shouldn't move unless you are pushing it. I wouldn't want to remove that lovely ease of movement if you don't need to. For example, That focuser could use a counterweight on the other side and end of the tube.

http://skywatcher.com/product/dob-12-synscan-upgrade-kit/