Skywatcher Focuser Mod MkII

[Uranium235]

Having gotten a bench drill for my birthday, I decided it was time to tackle the 130pds focuser properly.

The plan being to allen bolt the back plate of a TS field tilter, to the 2" stock visual back of the 130pds (M54 Male thread), thereby allowing me to not only internally house the MkIII MPCC internally (via M48), but tilt the field to suit a centrally focused star (as often its just one corner out slightly).

Tapping the M2.5 holes wasnt nearly as difficult as is made out, probably because it was aluminium! Ive done the usual check of shining a bright light behind it to ensure the back plate was flush against the visual back (checking for light leaks), and all is good... no leaks.

From the face of the field tilter Ive got 49mm to play with, and minus the camera and FW  leaves a 10mm gap to fill which is useful because I still need space to adjust the tilt on the fly.... hmmm I think I will need a right-angle screwdriver to made the job easier - or swap the countersunk phillips screws for some countersunk allen screws. I took a few photos, apologies for the image quality as they were taken on the phone.

Hopefully this will be a vast improvement over the MkI, which was basically just held together with superglue! Which was a bit dodgy at times because its prone to shock and doesnt like shearing forces. The new arrangement feels rock-solid.

Thanks for looking

Rob

[oldpink]

Nice bit of DIY