lguise

Hi,

I have a Vixen 40mm Orth which came to me with a telescope many years ago. It has a threaded end rather than a 1.25” or 2” barrel. I don’t mean anything as antique as RAS thread, a modern fine pitch. There is also a step down ring which reveals a larger female thread. See photo. Has anyone come across this before? My guess is it may thread into a special diagonal?

Any info appreciated, it looks a cracking eyepiece still unused!

A very high quality build! All the attention to detail will pay off, this Observatory will last for decades. Well done Kevin, looking forward to seeing the finished structure.

All the best,

Linton 

Thank you for clearing something up for me! I remember watching Sir PM in the early 1960s and I thought it was during Children's Hour but I could not remember the name of the programme. It must have been Seeing Stars, I know I was too young in those days to be able to stay up for The Sky at Night.

I wonder if any video tapes exist of those early shows? They certainly got me hooked for life.

Thanks for reviving some happy memories.

Linton

Just checked the various motors I have on SP and GP mount and they all have 1/120 gears. so are MT-1 (although Keith mine have a code of PF42-4813G)

My guess is Vixen continued to use old casings for a while once they switched to the newer motors?

Raphael I can't open the sound files on this computer but all the vixen stepper motors I have owned have made various chattering and knocking sounds when not under load.

Linton

Linton

I am trying to get the sequence of Vixen motors and controllers as used on Vixen SP, GP and GPDX Mounts straight. If you have any info and a better understanding please chip in.

So the early Vixen SPs had a stepper motor with only 5 pins? (unipolar?) I am not certain if this motor had a designation? or the designation of the controller?

My SP mount from 1989 has 8 pin plugs and so what I believe are the later MT1 stepper motors (bipolar?), it has a DMD-3 twin axis controller.

I also have a GP which has a single MT1 (8 pin stepper) but with an SD-1 controller. I have seen others identical to these but with DD-1 controllers (Twin drive)

I have owned several GPDX mounts over the years mostly these had black motor boxes with servo motors and encoders. I believe these motors were designated MT4? They operate with the Skysensor 2000

What other designations have there been and do I recall a point when the controllers were made more stable to higher Voltages?

Many thanks for any info.

Best wishes,

Linton

This is very useful document. Many thanks for your work on this.

Best wishes,

Linton