Adding GOTO to an old telescope

[MikeMS]

All.

I seem to be going the other way to everyone else. I purchased a 1983 orange tube C8 last year whilst in America and I have recently purchased a second hand LX90 fork mount and put the celestron OTA in it.

I have to say it is a very simple conversion and the GOTO does work. Indeed in polluted skies I put it on a tripod without checking if it was level, centred Vega, told the handset this is what the scope is looking at, entered the date and time and it went to the double cluster and put it in the eyepiece. I could see the summer triangle visually but not much else.

For the conversion, I drilled two new holes in the LX 90 plates that hold the OTA and filed a little for the plates to accept the profile of the OTA. I do have a dovetail I have put on the base of the OTA and I have made a sliding counterweight to accept the different eyepieces.

This is the second time I have done this, the first I must have cut and filed the bracket on the arm as I snapped the bracket off this time, by mistake, but glued and bolted it back on.

The handset is on loan, well the electric board is and it is my casing. Total cost for a GOTO 8" SCT about £300.

I do not have a tripod for it, so I made a pedestal out of an old telescope tube and two metal plates to adjust and hold the base of the fork mount. I have wires under tension to stop the vibration and it only sits on the patio.

Kind regards,

Mike.

[Peter Drew]

Nice one!