Eryk Mozejko

Looking at the photo il guess the material is either a PE or PTFE. drop it in water , if it sinks its PTFE, floats is a PE. probably the best thing would be get a 0.5mm sheet of PTFE and cut 3 or 4 bearings so you can try them stacked like a shim to get the right results. I would think !.5 mm would be the right thickness as the part number listed is the same. The end ring on the shaft should dictate how much gap is taken up to get both bearings to mate with each surface. At least with shimming layers of 0.5mm sheet you can experiment with which gets you the best results. otherwise by a small ball of a putty like substance. Something like Blu-Tak or what ever equivalent is available locally to you (its a product used to stick things like posters on walls temporaily. usually obtained from office stationary suppliers. stick the ball up against where the bearing should go. then fit the shaft in place without turning it. then pull it apart. hopefully the putty with have bee squashed into the thickness of the smallest gap between the two surfaces the bearing is to fit between. I like the idea of the return screw you have to stop the RA body from slipping in its altitude adjustment. by taking off the plate 1-9 there should be two small grub screws, silver in colour now visible in the 4 and 8 o'clock positions. tightening these applied pressure in order to help stop the whole mount from tilting on its altitude axis on its own. But these two screws also stopped that side of the part 1-2 from clamping part 1-3 properly from both sides. Which denied the mount its full capacity to carry heavier equipment.

Hello Carles; I'm trying to remember how that washer sits in there. its been quite a few years. The Material should match the other bearing you moved. Cant remember which plastic it is. PTFE is distinct in how solid white in colour it is. Its also one of the highest density plastics, weight similar to that of Aluminium. if not Teflon then its either a high molecular weight polyethylene (500 grade known as HMWPe or 1000 grade known also as UHMWPe). A PE will float in water. Nylon6 will be off white with a hint of yellow slightky denser than water. its intended to be as much a support to spread the weight, taking up torsion perpendicular to the shaft axis as much as reducing friction. Either of the three materials are available in sheets from 0.5mm thick. Personally I would opt for a HMWPe or UHMWPe although 1000 grade Pe would be harder to source in very thin sheets. Ptfe would come a close second. Unfortunately Acetal (POM) is not readily available in thin sheets and I'm sure 3mm is the thinnest. PTFE is usually stocked in smaller sheets and is reasonably easy to cut to shape. Incidentally as you posted the diagram of the mount. The part I was refering to that we reworked is listed as part 1-9. this image doesnt show the two grub screws that go into part 1-2. But looking at the part 1-2 the right hand vertical part (tine) of this casting is the part which is pushed away from the RA body (part 1-3). So the bearing/washer 1-28 is where most of the load from the weight of the OTA,counterweight and the mount go through on the from factory set up. By getting that right tine of 1-2 to be pressed up against the RA body 1-3 so the load goes evenly through both bearing washers 1-28 and 1-29, the capacity and stability of this mount is greatly increased. If I had an SP mount today and had it stripped down. Nothing to do with its performance and purely from an asthetic point of view. I would strip that paint and have a hard time deciding wether to spray it the current Mazda metalic red or a pearlescent white similar the current Lexus colour.

Hi Red dwarf Yes I did know Peter, although lost touch with Him as well as a whole bunch of people. Exchanged a few replies on another chat forum recently. I just had to edit what I wrote as I spotted that I typed Your instead of You're then noticed some gobbeldigook so had to straighten some sentences out

Thank you for the welcome everyone. Firstly Ive got to say to David, have you still got it? I'm kicking myself for not getting round to setting myself up with my own 8 or 10" on the SP mount. although I had ideas of stripping the mount down. Cutting off some of the latitude section from the RA body and replacing the Vixen section that sits on the tripod with something more akin to the twin shark fin set up either side of the RA body that Rob and Peter designed for the PM mounts. Also use that opportunity to change the paint finish of the mount and tube. Even so that's an ideal set up I would love to use right now. The 8" was such a nice balance between performance and ease of use with practicality. the slip ring/camera piggyback platform makes a nice difference. 85? one subtlety in that mount tells me I tuned that mount before you got it so I hope it was ok. To Bedfordshire David and Neil H. My Mum still lives in Stopsley. its been 5 years since I've been back although planning to possibly come over some time this year. I noticed something disapearing and changing each time I came down from Norwich . Now being 5000 miles away..... My brother works at what's left of Vauxhall. And I see the stop start redevelopment of Power Court where of course Jim Hysom used to be with A+E optics

Thank you for the Welcome I was thinking ideally 8"+reflector. My fave is DSO"s although who doesn't enjoy a proper look at the planets. I did have a play around with 3colour composites of Jupiter back in the days of emulsion. I worked for Minolta for a while and remember vividly after we were messing with one of the first digital camera backs (which only gave images in green) a colleague saying "Well there's one thing we know for certain. There will never ever be a day when digital takes the place of emulsion film in photography!" I thought well I'm sure it wasn't that long ago where someone probably said "They'll never make a machine that can milk a cow". I would like to mess with imaging I'll probably find a used newtonian on a GEM and later upgrade either the OTA or mount then the other. A few Moderate Eyepieces then slowly change them up. (A good comfortable eyepiece I believe is an often overlooked subject matter with telescopes that make a huge difference to the observers enjoyment) I kicking myself for not asking to have my dialted pupil size measured during my recent eye exam to calculate the right match of eyepiece as annoyingly age creeps up on aspects of what I could see. Gradually trade my way on the mount and OTA up to what would satisfy me. I do like Equitorials having got used to them. Otherwise A nice Dob would have been my first choice. Ive seen what you could get Dob-wise for a moderate outlay and it is a good and temping option. Currently I'm mulling over something available locally which includes a Vixen SP mount because after I'm done with a few mods I'ld probably keep it regardless if I continue to get something else mount wise in future. Although I have just missed out on a couple of very nice packages. I'll have to be more vidilant.

Here I am letting life get in the way of astronomy. Now that itch to immerse myself in something more than the occasional snippet of astronomical titbits over the broad media or the glance up at a clear sky with the daunting realization that I'm forgetting what's up there. I've started to delve into the current world of Amateur Astronomy. Why the Title? I'm sure maybe a few here would see the name Luton and recall wasn't there a few Telescope manufactures there. Well yes and during the mid to late 80's I was at Astro Systems/Astro Promotions. Found myself in Norwich for 20 years and for the past 10 years Colorado USA (thanks to all my work colleagues being on one facebook stupid game or other, long story but that lead me to end up the other side of the pond. Did not see that coming) Over the past year with some of the Podcasts I listen too, then finding a few interesting Youtubers that overcome some dismay at the standard of documentaries available via TV. Oh yes british TV is one of the things I really miss. My interest has been rekindled so some extent. Incidentally I've really enjoyed Dr Becky on You tube and more recently Astro Biscuit. I've been looking into what observational equipment is available out there that I might have to occasionally throw into the back of the Subie (its a Colorado thing, tends to get a bit slippy round here this time of year) and find a nice spot to have a leisurely look around at the wonders above. Oh wow has stuff moved on. I'm relearning what's out there and have a far idea of what sort of options I'ld like to eventually go for. Although in the mean time I'll start with finding something simpler while I'll see if I can work out observational astronomy into my non existent spare time. Used equipment seems to be a bit more here compaired to Blighty. In case anyone else has seen Astrobicuit YouTube episode of imaging one of the "Luna Blue Lakes" Yes I did catch that 10" he bought for the absolute steal of 650 Pounds. The first proper scope I got my teeth into was an identical 8", so nice to use which let me concentrate of seeing stuff. I've found this lounge through trying to source a dual axis hand control for a Vixen SP mount as there's a nice deal on a collection of equipment including a mount with both MT-1 motors but no hand control. With which I would love to set to making a few mods which I never got the chance to try and would make a really good mount much better. I would be interested to catch up anyone I may have come in contact with during those days in the rabbit warren that was 24 Old Bedford Road in Luton or even the later site at Hartley Road. Or those always entertaining AAC Starparties.

Astro Systems back page.htmlHello Ibraidwo, Firstly I'll mention the fact that I used to work at Astro Systems / Astro promotions during the 80's. I can confirm that this is an Astro Systems 6" F6 newtonian. Of course the mirrors are from David Hinds. While I was experimenting with some things, I asked him for any optical flats as seconds as they were not going to any customer. What too him was a huge casum of a defect was so tiny that it just goes to show his high standards and why he had such a reputaion. I noticed this scope has a different focus mount to the Vixen mounts we fitted. Can't tell if its one of the ones we played round with as a prototype with the idea producing our own ones. Or if its a reto fit someone added at some point. The tube assembly is a Collimation free design. In that we thought we're making the tube assemblies over and over using Ali tubes. So why cant we just fabricate everything so that the primary is aligned just as most refractors are. This simplifies the primary mirror cell. So reducing weight, the thermal mass and the cost. The remaining Collimation is done via the Spider and the secondary. This was all made with the idea of being sturdy enough to survive being shipped, then have a life of being constantly moved and driven around. Then reassembeled on the mount. Through all of this getting rid of the need to Collimate it. The final idea is to enjoy the views and not get tangled in managing the instrument. We had a 6" on the Alt Az mount in the showroom. For years the best I could demonstrate how well it held collimation to each customer was to hit it hard with my hand. That poor scope endured this day in day out, over and over. Yet it never lost alignment Some hints i can see tells me its one of the earlier 6" tube assemblies when the Super Polaris mount was released. Most for instance had the finder sprayed the same grey finish as the tube. Also soon after in order to get the mount to acceptably take the load of the 8" and 10" tube assemblies we made our own tripods. plus only on the first few 6" models did we make our own counAstro Systems back page.htmlter weight using the Vixen ones later as we were too busy at that time. A very important accessory you have on this SP mount is that Grey plate for the altitude/latitude adjustment. In order to get polar alignment. We found this was the Achilles heal of the mount. Where as it looks as if the RA body is clamped from both sides by the tines between the tripod and RA body in fact this mount is not. From the factory under the original adjustment plate there were 2 small grub screws. These are intended to stop the whole mount loosely swinging about its latitude adjustment. These screws pushed one of those tines side away from the RA body. So the weight and torsion from the scope and mount was mostly loaded through the tine to other side of this plate. That modified plate removes those two small grub screws. Our grey plate was much thicker. I have to say that was the one item of cast aluminium we ever used in any fabrication and I hated the finish quality of them. Incidentally the casting was done by a local Blocker, as in Hat manufacturing 'Blocker'. Luton being famous for its once dominant hat industry and from where the expression Mad as a hatter comes from. (mercury was applied to felt hats to give them their sheen and often smoothed in by hand. Hence the health implications for many workers.) A Blocker is someone who maufactures the Block around which a hat is shaped. The three grub screws you see from the outside of that plate apply pressure to a thick washer underneath. This pushed hard against the redundant tine thereby clamping the RA body firmly from both sides. The improvement to a loaded mount was dramatic. Without the combination of this plate and the tripods that we made there was no way we could feasibly expect the 8' or 10' assemblies with accessories to work. One tip with the adjustable tripod you have (this tip goes for any similar tripod including camera tripods) is once everything is assembled. Using your foot push each of two legs outward. One leg at a time. With about half a kilo pressure. If try this on a lighter set up like a camera tripod, less force is needed. This removes any lash on the legs and their attatchment points. With a resulting slight inward tension into the ground, this helps with a little bit more stability and damping. One thing to watch is when packing the whole assembly away is always remove that rigid dec handle as soon as possible. While being transported this can have the risk of being knocked and then bending the worm gear. Removing this first you're less likely to forget. As for the rust on the braces that span inbetween the tripod legs, try rubbing with wire wool, even with a bit of alcohol as well. This works well on that finish unless its deeply corroded. Wiping after with a cloth or tissue that's lightly coated in an oil like WD40 occasionally will help protect it from further rust. if Memory serves the basic 6" Newtonian on a Super Polaris mount retailed at $545. The single axis drive (I do hope you have the hand controller) was another $98. The slipring/camera platform was an extra $35 I think ? The fact that you got this for how much ! Well that is a truly amazing find. I would like to ask that should you ever think of selling it would you give me first refusal. Also I would not be expecting to pay such a ridiculously low amount, and nor should you ever accept anything below a reasonable amount for such an instrument (I'll just have to work out how to ship it from My parents home to Colorado)