Rusted

iStar make f/10 achromats specifically for H-alpha solar work. These seem to work well on lunar imaging with a green filter too.

Thanks for the tip but I have both 1.25" astro EP adapters. The Kowa zoom EP is superb even with the 1.6x booster. Brighter, with a wider field and superbly well corrected. Particularly when compared with my humble, Meade 4000s. Which are more like tunnel vision in comparison.

I do wish the spotting scope manufacturers would allow room for star diagonals. I can use 1.25" EPs with a short, screw on, ring adaptor but it uses socket head grub screws. Not ideal in the dark! A short, compression ring fitting would have been far better. I tried a 1.25" 90° diagonal with and without GPCs or a Barlow. It still wouldn't reach focus. That aside, the views are the best I have ever seen through anything. Shockingly sharp, bright and colour pure. As it should be for the asking price. Fluorite 88mm Kowa 884 straight through. Bought for distant bird watching and photography. I really wish I had gone for the 45°. Neck wringing is strictly a young man's, dangerous sport. I made a Baader foil solar filter for it but it is only really useful with a low sun. Though, with a 4/3 G9 fitted I can easily flip the rear screen to view the sun or moon. Not remotely the same as the live view though. The problem with smaller scopes is the softening of the image and loss of light with increasing magnification. Visually, the Kowa holds well at up to 96x with its 1.6x extender. [Dedicated Barlow] At 96x I was enjoying the eye detail of a singing blackbird on a distant roof at 250 yards as dusk was falling fast! The money might have been spent on an astro telescope but it would have been far longer, far clumsier and far heavier. Without the nitrogen purging, weatherproofing and rugged construction. Plus the built in tripod screw socket. The 25-60 zoom eyepiece is absolutely superb at all powers and the sharpness and brightness hold up extremely well. I have tried other spotting scopes but was always disappointed. Even with Zeiss. As en entry level telescope I would want to look through one over a reasonable period before deciding. Do not believe online reviews. Particularly on YouTube. They are either defending their blind purchase or pushing product! You usually only ever get what you pay for. If the item were better than everything else then it would be more expensive. But! I bought a nice little astro refractor from Lidls for about £40. The mounting was crap. The insides of the OTA were shiny plastic. But the views were crisp enough. Giving it a makeover, to blacken or flock it, would have made it a really excellent first scope. It deserved better eyepieces and the Meade 4000s were fine. Bresser Skylux 70mm f/10 if you ever fall across one.

I have the angular contact bearings and have fitted them. The images above show my partial mock-up of a heavily reinforced RA worm housing. Between waiting for new screws in the post and bouts of severe dizziness I have made little further progress. I have visited the doctor and had a negative virus test and negative on routine blood tests. A low sun and weeks of overcast sky have taken the pressure off the burning desire to finish the mounting improvements. So I am preparing the ground for a much bigger dome while I am still upright.

All of this could have been avoided if you'd bought the liquid nitrogen cooled, Pro-17a[IV]S3 model. Only another £2750. Comes with a free holster, shoulder and Velcro adjustable waist strap and fully recoil protected, steady-cam. The Kevlar shielded case [provided] is guaranteed to be fully resistant against all radiation burns up to several thousand Kelvin. I was, however disappointed to find that the automatic fire extinguisher came without the promised flotation devices. A quick email to the vendor soon sorted that out and now I'm as happy as a sandboy in clover and completely over the moon. I'm still looking forwards to the hands-on personal training sessions once the present "slight difficulties" are over. No doubt we'll be seeing you again soon in the ICU?

It sounds if you are experiencing closed loop, positive feedback on your drive system. Best avoided! My idler wheel is a simple, turned brass roller running on a polished, stainless steel, bolt shank. The roller was sized to reduce belt slop and no more. I tried a larger roller but it was much harder to insert it. It seems I don't need a tension idler now the motor has moved relative to the worm. Or vice versa. 36-37F here, constantly overcast and downright unpleasant to spend hours "fiddling" in an unheated building. I have retreated to the comfort and safety of the computer chair.

Better to squash any chance of flexure in one go. Rather than by lengthy trial and iteration.

Thanks Huw. I checked and without any deliberate end loading the flange bearings had no shake when I fitted a 3' pipe to the bottom of the PA and gave it a good workout. My worm housing will soon be fully enclosed in an aluminium "trough." I'm just waiting for some M6 SS CSK screws to be delivered to hold it all together. The motor mounting plate and rear reinforcement will close off the ends of the Beacon Hill channel and provide some serious resistance to linear bearing movement. The motor will also be shimmed tightly in its alloy, box profile to help to stiffen the whole motor/worm assembly. I'll brace across the end of the open motor slot too. Some pictures of the mock up so far:

Richard's beautiful image suggests we are in orbit around a dim [and highly variable] double star. Though it could be just chucking out time at the only remaining pub in the Shetlands. Not too sure about the "Close Encounters" landing strip in the centre background. [Second image only] Perhaps they are on a rolling blackout from a lack of solar energy? Too much dark matter on Thursdays?

Welcome to SGL. For there to be a solar flare wouldn't you have to prove the existence of a sun? Big bright thing? Nah. You'd probably have to ask an astro-archaeologist about that. It's mostly just myth and legend these days. Nobody here actually remembers having seen it on last occasion it made an appearance.

Thanks. Much the same as AWR charge for encoders. [From fading memory.] I'm on the points of making a new worm [trough-shaped] housing. If I could get the worm off the [stumpy] Beacon Hill shaft I could turn one to a sensible length between centres. I suppose I could turn a new worm, between centres, but haven't the patience darkest midwinter. By the time I've paid 25% VAT on top of everything and all the additional import and customs clearance charges, the E Byers wormwheel sets would be 50% higher. Gorgeous, they may be, but I'm not sure I could cope with that much bling in the observatory. During solar imaging sessions it would be like one of those disco mirror balls during a Meridian Flip. Ironically the same website you linked to sells wormwheel sets. No idea as to their quality though.

Hi Andrew, Try double clicking brings up an enlargement. It looks as if the raw Beacon Hill drive error is +/-15" with a 5 second period. Huw, Is the £800 you quoted the full cost to be up and running with a commercially available set-up? Or just the cost of the encoder?

Thanks Huw. Looking at your mounting I see that you have the B.Hill channel section, worm housing backed by a thick plate. My worm housing channel is arranged "sideways on." So likely much more prone to flexure. I have dismantled and rebuilt the RA worm/motor housing several times this morning. I keep trying various [scrap metal] profiles against the assembly to see if I can considerably increase the overall stiffness. As the Irishman is supposed to have said: "I really wouldn't start from here!" Tell me more about this RA shaft encoder? It would be great not to be limited to [slow] motor slews. [Minutes per 90°!] I understand AWR offers encoders for its drives [at a price] but I haven't researched the issue further due to the cost.

Yes, it would make good sense to triangulate the open, Beacon Hill style frame as you have done. A prism frame has no stability across the uprights unless it is triangulated by reinforcing plates on all three, square faces. [Stressed skin effect.] The problem with most mountings is that the manufacturer has to allow for almost universal, PA altitude adjustment. Which means that some (obscenely expensive) high end mountings abuse simple, blade-like, PA, support forks. Because I had no interest in lightweight mobility I used a PA support fork in 20mm solid metal. But, further, ensured the fork tines were braced upright by clamping across the massive, square section, PA housing. This was only possible by offsetting the PA altitude, clamping stud to clear the PA shaft. The Fullerscopes MkIV shot itself in both [fork] legs by insisting on a centrally placed, PA, altitude pivot. [Cosmetic handicapping!] Which meant undersized, screw threads in the very soft, cast metal, PA cone. This denied the application of a massive clamping force via a long, through stud. These silly screw threads are probably all as badly stripped as the silly, little, altitude locking screws by now. The only way a MkIV [and many other mountings] makes any sense is with an altitude adjustment turnbuckle. I considered drilling a large hole in the underside of the MkIV's PA casting. To allow the insertion of large [hex socket] PA altitude bolts to face outwards through the fork tines. "Fishing" such bolts through such an arrangement would be a nightmare. So I did not proceed. The MkIV's PA fork "ears" are weak metal and hollow section to boot. So easily crushed unless stuffed with packing washers. I should say that I am grateful to the MkIV for teaching me to avoid all of its serious pitfalls as I designed my own mounting in my head. Parallel reinforcement by multi-tasking every component proved to be the way ahead at lowest cost. Where I could not afford castings and very large, box section profiles, I used multiple compression studs in all 3 planes. Each component leans on all the others to become greater than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately I abandoned my own principles when it came to supporting the [now glaringly inadequate] Beacon Hill, worm housings. I badly underestimated the linear and torque loading involved on the motor/worm housing. Made worse by the large cut-outs in the motor box sections. To allow the drive motor power sockets to clear the box during insertion. "Cosmetic handicapping" is the fine art of making something look pretty, for its own sake, even if completely fails to function mechanically.

Just a few thoughts: Domes are great! Instant gratification for observing/imaging and instant cover when a passing shower arrives. The rollers of my [raised] home made, plywood dome rest on heavy timbers and there are plywood obs. walls. The floor is high quality, larch planking and is deliberately spaced for ventilation. The gaps between the observatory floor joists are open to the outside air to maximise ventilation. Thermal mass must be very low but still averages 3-5F offset. This is the difference between the outside air temperature [in deep shade] and inside the dome. An indoor/outdoor digital thermometer allows easy monitoring at low cost. A concrete pad would and should be shaded from direct sunshine by the obsy. itself. The pad's high thermal mass would act as a thermal flywheel. Probably helping to even out the observatory's internal temperatures. Careful sealing around the edges of a GRP dome will prevent wind blown, water ingress. A covering of insulating foam panels over concrete sounds ideal. Though I have never tried them. BTW: There are waterproof wood product sheets available in metric 8'x4'. A "wooden" floor doesn't have to be softwood or terrace boarding. Man-made terrace boarding is also available. An alternative to a complete concrete pad would be individual, cast concrete, pyramidal, carport anchors. I used eight of these for my two storey building. Four more for the isolated timber pier. This avoided the very serious problem of a massive concrete pad to be rid of on moving house! My own ground floor is pea gravel over self-compacting gravel. I added concrete slabs for the foot trafficked areas to avoid the gravel dust being carried upstairs. Artificial lawn might make an amusing "alternative" floor covering for an observatory.

How about simple bracing between the base and the worm assembly? Go kart track rods with built in turnbuckles and spherical joints? If it still needs such stiffening?

Update: Today I slid a 3' length of 50mm bore, metal pipe over the extended lower end of the PA shaft. There was no detectable play in the PA flange bearings despite my best efforts at leverage in all directions. Suggesting only the illusion of lateral PA movement when the 6" telescope was used as a lever in the video. I'm still doodling potential motor/worm mounting ideas to include the clever "flexor" hinges. I need these "hinges" to be much nearer the worm housing and further away from the motor housing. The belt drive can easily manage the tiny movements required for the worm to maintain mesh. New, longer belts are readily available, if needed. The box profile, motor housing is an ideal support for the worm, for height, but only in the cosmetic sense. The heavily cutaway, box profile seems to badly lack rigidity. So, ideally, the worm housing should be treated as a separate, hinged unit. Or, the hefty, stepper motor could be tightly packed around, with suitable shims. To make the motor into a structural element of the box profile, worm support.

Thanks Huw. I'm studying my options.

Thank you Huw. Sorry I didn't answer yesterday. I am unwell. I'll be back.

Thank you both. I have made roller bearing, disk mounts up to 24" diameter but never motor driven. Using AWR drives I cannot manually move the mounting. Motor drive only. Not quite the same thing, but I added a 7" [180mm] diameter, thick disk at the top of the PA to spread the loads into the Dec housing. The Tollok bush expands into it for improved stiffness. The disk mounting has the problem of securely attaching the Dec axis housing unless the disk is made very large. Thanks Huw. Similar arrangement to a precision clock, pendulum suspension. I'll have a dig in my scrap, phosphor bronze collection.

Some progress: After hours of searching very unhelpful bearing websites I found some angular contact bearings in the matching size to the original deep groove. 12x28x8mm for a straight swap. Whoever produces these bearing websites needs a course in customer satisfaction. Endlessly random size listing and filters which completely ignore entries. Nothing in Denmark that I could find. Had to buy them from the UK. Delivery by snail mail. https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p88002/Budget-7001-Single-Row-Angular-Contact-Open-Ball-Bearing-12x28x8mm/product_info.html

Hej Lars, I have had the same problem with translating old Danish [technical] catalogues and manuals to English. Miserable weather here. Grey and overcast. Rain is promised for this afternoon.

Hej Lars, If the original Swedish text is available online then Google Translate may be able to do the rest. Right click> Translate this page> Auto/English. These old and deserted observatories have a rather melancholy [sad] atmosphere. Still fascinating though and thanks for sharing your visits with us.

Thank you Huw. Sadly I have no recollection of your thread. My failing memory must be even worse than I feared. You seem to have been struggling with your Beacon Hill parts in a parallel universe to my own. Your approach is far more sophisticated than my own. I have never tried PHD. Only now am I considering screw adjustment of worm/wheel mesh. I usually adjust by feel alone. Angular contact bearings, of identical dimensions o the originals, would/might reduce end play. More importantly, without altering the original dimensions of the channel section worm "housing." There are NO taper roller bearings available in the 12mm bore x 28mm outside dimensions. Even ignoring the width. There is a very severe clearance constraint before the worm drive pulleys jam in the wheel teeth. Or, the wheel rubs on the opposite end of the [channel section] worm "housing." Already much filing required. Which means increasing overall bearing dimensions would require that they be moved outboard of the present simple channel. Which is physically impossible within the present limits on worm shaft length. There is hardly enough room for a pulley to grip. Fitting outboard bearings to supplement the originals is also impossible for the same reasons given above. I am using triple grub screws at 120° on all my timing pulleys. It was the only way of keeping them on. I edge drilled the support metalwork to allow a long section hex key to reach the hidden grub screws. My brass worms are presumably bonded to the steel shaft with something like Loctite. Or even shrunk on? I could remove the worms and turn more generous shafts to fit larger, more widely separated bearings. Possible risk of even worse eccentricity? Could I alter/spoil the metallurgy of the brass worms if I heat them? I have searched for "flexors" but came up empty. Is this a generic term for a flat, blade spring?

Okay. After a whole morning of dismantling, rebuilding and fiddling I have two more videos. I used a temporary fibre washer to take up the end play. Just as a proof of effort expended. I'd need the lathe to make a new stainless steel washer. No desire to stand at the lathe at 36F with my nose dripping. Watch later