C11 with an ed80 counterweight on an eq6

[ncjunk]

Slowly the setup is mutating bit by bit. The latest madness is the addition of an Atomiser, spanish company, bracket onto the counterweight shaft of the eq6. This allows the attachment of a small telescope.

I made an error when purchasing it and bought the wrong model, i bought the one with 100mm rings which would allow the attachment of a telescope with a maximum external diameter of 80mm NOT an 80mm scope (my stupidity!)

They also do an attachment which takes a vixen bracket. So, undeterred i drilled a couple of holes in the vixen bar and bolted it straight to the Atomiser bracket/fixing.

First thoughts are there is flexure, no surprise!, on the counter weight shaft and that i will need to define limits on eqmod to stop the camera hitting the mount.

The atomiser attachment is a circular tube which fits around the shaft and uses 4 large..ish grub screws to fix it to the shaft. On the face there are eight screw holes (technical term there...) which allow the attachment of mounting brackets etc (which is how i bodged the ed80 onto it).

I would say an ed80 is the largest telescope you want to put on it. An ideal size would be a dslr or a 66mm scope.

Hopefully sometime in the new year i can attach everything, the usb cables, and try it...i need to as the qhy8l has been sat in a cupboard for a year waiting to go on it!

Thought i'd post this so that you can all see the road down which madness lies..widefield shots and closeups at the same time.

Saludos

Neil c

[Gina]

Weird! From my mechanical engineering knowledge I can't see that being practical at all. There will be lots of flexure, of course, as you say. I can't see any point in doing that.

[ncjunk]

The point is if i stick the ed80 on top of the c11 i have to add more counterweights and get close to overloading the mount.

This way the overall weight on the mount remains the same and with the short focal length of the ed80 the errors induced by flexure will hopefully not show. If you stick a 66mm on then it would be even better.

Yes there's flexure but i think this will work, guiding on the c11 with an oag.

I can always stick a focal reducer on...

I'll give it a go anyway, you dont get anywhere by not trying.....i'm a master of failure..

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[CGolder]

How are you going to be able to see over the wall with both scopes ;-)

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[ncjunk]

Ahhhh you noticed that...i minor inconvenience honest! I think it will mean imaging only from 60 deg or more. I can still image lower but only using the c11

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[ncjunk]

Well, tested last night and managed to image M42.

I was taking the subs through a thin film of dew as all the dew strips were on the C11.

The guiding was fine and there was not any evident issue with flexure but I would assume after a slew you may have to wait for it to settle. The main problem with the guiding appears to be a periodic error that changes quite quickly in one part of the cycle and I´m wondering if applying PE correction will help (it should but that means going through all the entertainment of recording it).

The ed80 doesnt have good views and is mainly blocked by the walls, an inherrent problem with my observatory design but better than no observatory. I can still image fine through the Zenith though.

After an hour of fighting with the qhy6 guider, never had these problems with the dsi, finally managed to get a couple of images.

The stars are not bad but on the extremes there is a fair bit of coma noticable but I suppose this is the price you pay for putting such a large sensor on the ed80.

Overall I am quite happy with the setup but need more testing as certain positions of Dec if set as the RA is swinging the counter weight past the pier will cause the camera to hit the pier.

I can minimise it by shifting the balance of the scope but its still a major worry until I can difine some limits......I may set a camera up in the observatory so I can check it.

So not bad but I would say you shouldn´t put anything more than an ed80 on the counterweight the smaller the better/easier. This would be a good setup for in the field with a main camera imaging close up and perhaps a dslr on the counterweight doing widefield.

Not bad....just a heck of a lot of tweaking to do now.

Neil C