Chriske

Thanks for the tip Stu...👍

one word : A-MA-ZING...!!

This an old one from last year, forgot all about it, anyway..
Scope 400mm RC eyepiece 35 +  Samsung smartphone(somewhat older)

Single shot, handheld no stacking nor processing.

It's a very first attempt from me and my son Steven.
Planing to continue taking more SP images in the future.

I will use the same setup as in my 150mm binocular.
And I'll add a readout apparatus so I can see on a small screen how far apart the eyepieces are. I will also make  a handheld measuring device so the observer can read what his IPD is. Have to think about this, how to make it.

This is a first idea
There are in fact two cradles.
The brown is fixed in the mount. The red one is attached to the two scopes.
The upper part of the brown cradle can be removed and locked with bolts. So the bino itself can be removed for easy transport.

As I said before I will mount the complete unit into an old Celestron forkmount.
While tracking the scopes, in fact the eyepieces, needs to stay horizontal. That is why the red cradle will rotate in the brown one. Smooth gliding will be done on Teflon pads.

The Focusing and IPD unit (busy drawing) is completely selfmade. For that I need 4 small diagonals(31mm).

To have an idea how big this is ; the diameter of the brown part is 230mm  --> fits exactly in that Celestron fork.

There's not to much work involved this time.
Both the tubes and cell's are in good condition. So that only leaves me the support unit(cradle) and also the focus/IPD unit to build.
My goal(as aways) is our open door mid Sept, so plenty of time. After open door I'll 'release' it in the hand of our youngsters...
I hope they take good care of it...🤨

Bino's...story of my life, and I'd rather call it an addiction...🤭

Busy drawing parts already.
Not far from that refractor I also found a very old C8 fork, it's a first generation I think(very ugly green).
I'm thinking using that fork to support that bino. I'll make a system to keep that bino horizontal all the time while tracking.

A few months ago I posted something about restoring a 77mm refractor
During cleanup in one of our 'forgotten corners', believe it or not, I discovered (covered completely with dust) exactly the same refractor as the restored one.

Needles to say these two scopes are candidates to make another binocular...

Except for the serial nr, these two are identical

Ordered a 40mm Omni from Celestron, just one to see how it performs.

redesigning, well we discussed it and a 2" eyepiece is a bit overkill for a scope this 'thin' we think.

Hey...!

What about this one...?

Hi guys...'m new here in this section.

Our group is busy building a few(6) Delmarva Schiefs.
The scopes we're building will be 108mm f/29(about, still busy grinding the optics)
We all have 'a bunch' of eyepieces from older projects and want to buy one more. The reason for that 'one more' is we want to see the entire Moon in the FOV using a 1"1/4 eyepiece.

So we need a wide angle eyepiece with a long FL.
Assuming the scope has a FL of 3100mm and using this eyepiece we have a magnification of 125x
That gives us a true field of 0.51°, so about the size as the Moon.

In the eyepiece 'world' there are a few other candidates to do the job, but they're rather expensive.
Does anyone now were to buy other long focus 1°1/4 eyepieces with an even larger AF...?

Thanks...

I have no manual and do not know if it's complete or not. Do not know how old it is.
Does anyone know what it is and how it works...?

Zenith prism ready, a 5.5 hour print.

We developed a very (special) test to see how strong these printed tubes really are. And with success I might say.
The first test was a load of 75kg and a second was about  95kg. There was no deformation at all and the three parts could be screwed loose without any effort after the test.

This is our very special setup...🤭

One of the printed versions of this Delmarva Schief project will look like this.
The printer of this builder only allow 180mm high prints. So the secondary tube needs to be printed in a few parts and connected with threaded inner rings.
He already printed and tested a few parts and it is incredibly strong and stiff. Each of the inner connecting rings has it's correct baffle on board. That makes these parts even stronger.

Together with the special zenith prism it will look like this. It is the one I drew and posted here earlier. Maybe, just maybe he will draw his own. I'll ask him...

I need to make some time to print that focuser....sigh...!
This very moment I'm busy building a Delmarva Schief. A few others of my ATM team join me in that quest.
At the same time I'm building, together with another team, a 'full scale' model of Wall-e.
And I'm also working on a 1:33 scale model of SLS Block1B Crew. Just finished Printing all parts of the Solid fuel boosters ready to assemble. When aal is done I also build SLS's LUT. The complete assembly will be almost 4.5m high.

But hey, I'll reserve one of my printers to print your designs. So go ahead and post that latest Helical(STP)

Meanwhile a 'special' laser collimator(yellow) is in the making.
The laser beam is not in line with the eyepiece, it is with the rest of the scope.

Because this Kutter has a tilted focal plane the eyepiece needs to be tilted 3°93 forward.
For this I designed a special Crayford focuser in which a zenit prism is integrated.
I also need to construct a special lasercollimator to compensate for that tilt. A regular laser collimator is useless in this scope.

Laserunit not yet in drawing, only the red beam.
The black tube is in fact the 'eyepiece barrel'.  Because of the optical design I cannot rotate that barrel in it's Crayford. I probabaly will add a notch of some kind so the barrel is fixed in its correct position.

Same for the laser collimator. It only has one possible and correct way to be inserted in the focuser. It already has that notch in the drawing.

Still busy planning, drawing some more and already made a few testprints.

As I said before I already have a wooden Kutter but the others need to make their scope. One more joined the group, so that leaves me with 1 set of optics.

So in total :
- a wooden will be made(mine)
- a second one will make the tubes out of aluminium
- a third will make a it's tube and wedge out a combination of wood, printed parts and a few sheets of acryl.
- the last two will be (almost) 100% printed. Almost because internally the printed parts will be reinforced with smooth or threaded rods. So in the end these scopes will be as stiff and strong as the other versions. Except for the collimation bolts no other metal part will be visible in these two scopes, that is the plan.

I use(d) these  brass backlash nuts all the time in my 3D printers beds. Recently I removed the smaller part and the spring of these units, because not working properly on my latest printer 300x300x500. I screwed a 1kg steel disk under the heatbed instead. Backlash problem solved.

I also have a idea to eliminate backlash on this focuser.

I take that as a yes...😉

And if my dual speed system is approved by you we call it Velical-C...

15 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I here by declare it public domain and you are free to do whatever you want with it.

Thanks a lot..!

I only need a proper name for your design. Credit where credit is due..!

What about 'Velical' focuser..?...😁😉