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Showing results for tags 'diy'.
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More than a year has passed since the construction of the Low Spec spectrograph in version 2.0 provided by the author of the project (@Paul Gerlach). The project provided for the purchase of a ready-made module for illumination of the slit. From the beginning, I missed a decent calibration module and slit illumination. But why buy something for almost PLN 100, when you can illuminate the slit while building a spectrum calibration module and add additional functionality. Everything is great on the "project": Inside the device: But the electrical diagram I drew was- 1 reply
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I bought two new dew heaters. They are sold to be used on camera lenses and powered from USB. I have modified them to reduce the power from 8 Watt to 2 Watt which will be enough for my demand. Some photos and documentation from this project: http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/project-heating-band/05-project-heating-band.html This will be battery operated and I try to reduce the power consumtion of the equipment. /Lars
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Hi guys and girls, I would like your thoughts on my grand design for my observatory as Kevin McCloud is busy and I am looking for that little gem of advice which may help me navigate around or avoid a common or not so common problem already addressed by the informed users of SL. I have a (second) shed measuring 2.5m x 3.0m and this is to be my observatory with great views 340° of the night sky (tree hiding NNW so not an issue). I live in the country 10 miles away from the nearest town so light pollution isn't an issue although I'm not in a dark skies site I have looked at the website belo
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I've been contemplating making a portable power box so I can take my mount to a dark site, a friend gave me an old lorry battery that no longer turns the engine over but will hold some charge. My intention was to get a nice enclosure and build something that looked professional like a few other members have created on here, unfortunately spare time is limited so I went for a simpler solution and created the following and it works very well.
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Hi all, As a beginner I'm in the process of acquiring all the equipment necessary to start imaging on an EQ3pro. As we're all experiencing, it's tricky to get your hands on any equipment at the moment due to stock shortage so I've been thinking of ways to keep myself busy in the meantime! I thought I'd share a project I worked on today that will give me a greater view of the night sky from my covered balcony. There are some good views from the balcony from East to West but using the tripod severely limits any overhead views. To bring the setup closer to the edge o
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Baader optical wonder solution is practically Isopropyl alcohol. Instead of £12 for a 70mL of it, buy a 1000 mL of Isopropyl alcohol for £22 (before pandemic it was only £5). They have also smaller bottles which will be cheaper of course. The Baader solution and Isopropyl alcohol don’t remove the toughest of fungi on optics, only a few of the less deep set ones can be treated with them. I have used both for cleaning eyepieces and on certain stage of cleaning several 8 to 12 inch mirrors. They both worked identical. When applied through an optical cleaning fabric, they remove ( dissolve) fatty -
I am excited to join this big star gazing community! I realize I am abusing of your kindness, so that you in advance for any help you can give. I have an old telescope, what appears to be a Meade ETX 90 from the early 2000s. I cleaned it pretty well after many Youtube videos and online research. I found full blown spider webs and dead spiders! I have encountered a few of issues as I'm putting it back together and I wonder if anyone might be able to help. 1. I took off the screws of the back of my OTA (I know I shouldn't have!) and now I'm not sure how to put them back on (see at
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[A few more photos are in the imgur album] Made this telescope for observing sunspots. The Sun gets projected onto a piece of paper after bouncing from 3 mirrors inside the frame. It's compact, light, takes only a few seconds to point at the Sun, and sketching sunspots is as easy as circling the spots on a piece of paper. It can even project the Moon: The design is inspired by a commerically available telescope, but I’ve done all the designing myself, just for the fun of it. Sunspotter is full of little details that make it interesting. How do you fix
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Hi Everyone, I am thinking of re-starting mirror grinding at home. I used to grind by hand and in this method, when we use the 1/3rd off-centre strokes for hogging out the sagitta, the upper glass becomes concave and would be polished into a mirror. However, this time I'd like to build a Mirror-O-Matic or something similar and do not understand that if the tool is on top, how will the bottom glass become concave? Or am I mistaken? Please advice.
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Hi! I really want to get into watching the night sky. After a looking at the scopes that are available in my country, I chose to buy a SW Explorer 200P (haven't yet) and build a homemade dobsonian base. I really like the aesthetics of the Orion Sky-quest dobsonian bases, so I draw a really similar design to fit the SW scope I want to buy. But while drawing it, I had tons of questions and I hope you can help me. First of all, I just could get some aproximate measures of the parts of the scope out of the internet. If any of you has one of these SW reflectors, I would really appreciat
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From the album: Astronomical Equipment
finished android nichrome wire heater -
From the album: Astronomical Equipment
Heating my 21mm Baader Hyperion -
corrector heater strap installed with controller
Badweather posted a gallery image in Member's Album
From the album: Astronomical Equipment
Corrector heater installed -
From the album: Astronomical Equipment
finished corrector heater -
From the album: Astronomical Equipment
finished diagonal heater -
From the album: Astronomical Equipment
star diagonal heater -
From the album: Astronomical Equipment
I finally received enough of the parts for my DIY dew control system to begin making the first one. -
In the famous words of Bilbao Baggins, I'm going on an adventure! Almost 2 years ago i got rid of my old shed with the intention of replacing it with a R O R shed, Well a lot has happened since then, but no R O R shed ? No way i could build one, my DIY skills are rubbish. My mount and scope plus other bits have sat in the garage ever since, mainly because it's such a pain to drag everything out and set up only to be thwarted by cloud/rain, so i decided that they would stay in the garage until the arrival of R O R shed, so fast forward 2 years..... Well! while browsing so
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Hi all, Pretty often I read about people having issues that may be related to backlash in DEC or RA, and I would like to offer a very simple and effective cure for it. I have done it on my HEQ5 Pro but surely it can be modified for any mount that needs it. With this simple fix, I can live with a rather big backlash (with no risk for binding in freezing temperatures). For DEC, I always balance carefully (neither front nor back heavy). Then I stretch the coil spring until it has a small impact on the DEC balance (and later in the evening I eventually forget about loosening it when I sl
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Hello, It's been a long time since I've posted in this forum, anyway I've picked up a Skywatcher 200p F/6 dobsonian as a DIY project whilst I continue to work on a new telescope from scratch, (I've started to grind the mirror). I'll be making improvements to this dobsonian as a project and learning experience, I've already got a temperature controlled fan which has a probe that can measure both mirror and ambient temperature. I'll be measuring the primary mirror with my in progress Foucault/Ronchi/Bath Tester when that's finished in the next couple of weeks, may even refigure it d
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Hi guys! I thought I'd pass on this link to a blog I am constructing. I intend to detail and illustrate all the steps involved in the construction of a 2.2m square dome observatory from its conception to it's complete outfitting. I am an amateur astronomer and most of the stuff I used in the making of the dome, apart from the actual construction materials was from recycled stuff and bits and pieces I managed to scrounge. A lot of the outfitting electronics and gadgetry came from cheap Asian sources and the circuitry and software was again partly home grown or borrowed from other sources.
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Finally a clear night and some good images grabbed with my DIY All Sky Camera. All stitched together in Light Room and the resulting video stuck up on YouTube and now linked to here Hopefully it will be clear again soon and can get some more good timelapses. Shame I am not further north with a possibility of an aurora, but hey ho. Thanks for looking
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observing chair Wooden Observing Chair - UK Source Required
DeepSkyMan posted a topic in DIY Astronomer
Hi there, I've been searching for a supplier or manufacturer of wooden observing chairs in the UK, with very little success (plenty over the pond). Do any SGLrs know of a source for these in the UK? I've looked at the Geoptik offeirng 'Nadira', but not sure of the build quality. In addition the base looks too narrow to me, also, being a short a##rse, the lack of foot rests in the design is a negative for me :-) Looking for something akin to this: Kind Regards Paul J. -
Took the bull by the horns and done the power modification on my Eq6 pro to connect via the 2pin connector , bit nerve racking haven’t really done much soldering before ,managed to do soldering without frying anything, used Blu-tac to isolate surrounding area so I didn’t solder anything I shouldn’t have , mount powered up checked slewing with handset , steady red light voltage reading 14v dropping to 13.9v slewing phew ?
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Hi SGL A call for ideas. I’m sat in a ferry on my way to the beautiful dark skies of the west coast of Ireland. I’ve packed my ED80 and porta Mount ready to enjoy some pristine skies. What I’ve forgotten is my finder scope ?. Can I make a make shift finder / red dot finder? Any ideas greatly received. Brendan
