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Camera rotators on Newtonians


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Hi all,

In trying to assemble a mosaic and mid-way through capture doing some rebuilds of my imaging train that required some rotation of components relative to each other, I've added "automatic rotation" to my list of things I'd like my imaging rig to be able to do.

Looking around the available options all look to have a T2 or similar thread on the camera side and either a 2" eyepiece or thread adapter (M48 or similar) on the downstream side.

My current optical train looks like this:

optical-train-2021-01-24.thumb.jpg.18f814c87b04d8c06d094525a97f813a.jpg

In practical terms this is:

  • Paracorr with T2 thread adapter
  • ZWO v2 OAG
  • ZWO T2 tilt adapter v2
  • ZWO Mini EFW (though I will upgrade this to the "full size" 1.25" EFW at some point)
  • ASI183MM-Pro

This is mounted in a Baader Clicklock mount (for the improved centration and reduced flexure vs a 3-screw adapter) which is mounted directly to the end of the Baader Steeltrak.

The rotators seem to assume you're installing them inline, in my case probably downstream of the EFW on its T2 thread so the OAG doesn't move, but I could also drop it in after the Paracorr. However, that then (I think) screws me for backfocus - the Paracorr to sensor distance has to be set right for the coma correction to work. The tilt adapter is about 13mm, so I could remove that (don't think I need to do much tilt adjustment anyway so it's a glorified spacer really) - but the thinnest rotator I can find is 18mm.

What's the solution to this? In theory if I had a rotator that could provide an offset clamping/rotating 2" eyepiece "hole" and used an M48 onto the existing drawtube I have loads of focuser in-travel available (it's currently about 35-40mm out at focus), but I don't think this is how most are constructed? Am I missing something or going about this the wrong way?

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