Building an 8.75" Newt

[Newastro]

Hi Folks,

I'm afraid this has been a while in coming so my apologies for the wait. As you might remember the last time I posted to the forum I was in the process of building a 8.75" Newt, well I thought it would be good to share with you the state of play at the moment.

Below is a photo of the mounting along with some (dodgy) tabs showing the general parts.

One of the aims in building this mount was to use materials that don't corrode and this mount contains s/steel, aluminium and some advanced engineering plastics such as PEEK,I must add at this point that the basic mount was physically engineered by a friend who happens to be a gifted engineer, sadly I no longer have access to his skills. The mount is designed to allow rotation of the OTA to provide viewing relief for the eyepiece( I guess we'll see how that works or not later! ) and to allow fine adjustment for polar alignment.

The mount is fitted on each of the three supporting legs with screw adjusters to allow for the leveling of the system once fixed into a concrete pad and with a sealable drive electronics and power supply box if I decide to use mains power to run the system.

Anyway enough for now, I'II post some more info later too keep you up to date.

Clear skies.

Malcolm.

[geppetto]

Ooooooh yummy..

This should be interesting, nice looking mount 8)

Post lots of info as you progress Malcolm and good luck with it mate

[FLO]

Nice one Malcolm, V interesting

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Looks nice and "heavy duty" Malcolm. Keep us posted, we're a nosy lot here you know.

Captain Chaos

[magician]

That looks Great! Well done, keep us posted

Cheers FRank

[SteelRat]

Like the looks o that tube cage 8) Def keep us infd'!

[lunator]

Malcolm

that looks very interesting.

keep us posted

Cheers

Ian

[barkis]

Hi. Malcolm,

It is a very pro looking mount. Did you mean that the scope tube will rotate within the cradle?

What is the diameter of the shafts, and are they stainless steel ?

Nosey beggar arent I.?

Ron.

[Newastro]

Hi Barkis,

The plan is to fit a slip ring onto the tube which will slide into a groove cut out of the top set of rollers and allow rotation of the whole OTA (I hope).

I wasn't sure which shafts you were asking about but the cradle shafts are aluminium and the RA and Dec axes are s/steel at 1" diameter. I've had the original RA shaft lengthened to allow room for the proposed drive gear.

Malcolm.

[barkis]

Hi Barkis,

The plan is to fit a slip ring onto the tube which will slide into a groove cut out of the top set of rollers and allow rotation of the whole OTA (I hope).

I wasn't sure which shafts you were asking about but the cradle shafts are aluminium and the RA and Dec axes are s/steel at 1" diameter. I've had the original RA shaft lengthened to allow room for the proposed drive gear.

Malcolm.

Thanks Malcolm. It is a very interesting concept. I hope you will keep us posted on the progress.

It is certainly looking the part. Thanks again.

Ron.