Teaser pics of where I am right now with LB16 mods

[ASIGN_Baz]

Given the red scanning light on the front, I'b be more worried if it said....

BY YOUR COMMAND

or...."SARAH CONNOR?"

[calibos]

Observe vit me ...if you vant to live!

[calibos]

Bit of an update.

Got a lot more of the wiring done which is the real tricky stuff. Its very important for the functionality I am trying to implement but unfortunatly it doesn't give one the satisfaction and further motivation of seeing the scope mods progress visually. ie. Visually it looks like I haven't done anything to the scope since I last posted in this thread. Thats one of the reasons I decided to do one of the easy quick mods ahead of schedule, just to give me some visual sense that things were moving along.

So I stuck on the Metallic Blue decals. Knightrider on the front and Lightbridge on each side.

Keep in mind that the camera flash highlights every speck of dust and fingerprint which aren't visible in natural light never mind in the dark. That said, once I am finished the scope, she's getting a rub with some Meguairs car polish and then a coat of wet look Meguairs carnuba wax.

So although it looks like I am not making any progress at all because all my recent work has been important but hidden stuff, I am getting there, Still its not as fast as I would like. Real life keeps getting in the way and even when I have some free time, the recent high humidity has me feeling lethargic and sometimes the TV seems a more attractive proposition.

However, got some news and something arrived in the post today that pepped me right up. My Orion XT12i sale went through which will make my Visa Card very happy and the final item of equipment for the new scope arrived in the post.

Its a Stellarvue F80M 80mm Finderscope and case. Its arrival has given me the motivation to get stuck into the mods again. I can't wait to see the scope finished with the Stellarvue perched on top. Even more than that. I can't wait to get her out under the stars!! Its been months since I last observed!!

[albedo0.39]

Nice little scope that calibos... but it looks so naked without any LED's. Surely you can hang something on it ?

[calibos]

It does already have a Red LED!! The Rigel Pulseguide illiminator!!

Just discovered some nice bonuses too. Yesterday I was a bit pee'd off that it hadn't arrived. I decided to go to the Stellarvue website to look at the pictures of the finder, to tide me over till it did arrive. (I'm a bit wierd like that! ) While there I noticed that they sold the Aluminium stalks for the F1 RDF's (Red Dot Finders). I had ordered one of these Aluminium Stalks for my RDF along with the SV F80M from Altair Astro. When Altair finally told me they could not source the Stellarvue after 5 months, I cancelled the order and ordered direct from Stellarvue themselves. Totally forgot about the Aluminium Stalk. Thus I was disgusted with myself for not noticing that Stellarvue also sold these stalks. My order was already on the way. I'd have to place a second order for this 15 quid item and probably pay as much in shipping!!

Well anyway, got my finder today. Was mildly disappointed that they had sent me the tall version of the Dovetail stalk for the Finder rings. This would put the Finderscope a bit too far away from the OTA for my liking. Was hoping it would fit more flush with the OTA. Then I realised that the stalk was attached to the Finder rings dovetail with a screw. I could remove the stalk part and screw the dovetail part to the OTA. ie. The Finderscope would sit very flush to the OTA. Result.!!

Then I realised that the Stalk part I removed and wasn't going to use looked very familiar. Its the same Aluminium stalk as the ones used for the F1 RDF's that I forgot to order!!

Thrilled now, that I forgot to order it, saving me 15 quid. After the above I would have ended up with 2 of them!! I know its only 15 quid but still. Must be the Scottish Blood in me from my Great Grandmother. Heavily diluted with vintage irish at this stage but still potent enough for me to relish a 15 quid saving!

[Doc]

I love reading your posts Keith

Great looking finder and I've heard and read great reports about them. I wouldn't mind one, shame it's not in black though as that would match the rest of the accesories on my OTA.

[calibos]

Mick,

While I did say to myself when I opened the box, "Matt black me @rse!" Its more gunmetal matt grey. However it is a very dark grey. The camera flash makes it look much lighter than it really is. Still, I was thinking to myself that maybe I should have paid the extra for the Gloss black version to match the OTA's. Then I remembered that I am painting the endrings and trusses with a matt black paint which will probably end up looking a very similar shade. So it kind of still does blend in with the overall colour scheme.

On the one hand I say to myself, "what are ye like, going on about colour schemes and colour co-ordination, its a blumming telescope ye eejit" But on the other hand I try to rationalise my pre-occcupation with aesthetics with this scope by remembering that this scope can't be stored in a Garage in our new house. It has to go in a room. Now while I couldn't afford a fine piece of carpentry and craftsmanship like some of the beautiful wooden premium dobs out there that are like pieces of furniture and wouldn't look to far out of place in a living room, well I am right to make an effort to make the Lightbridge look as neat and tidy as possible for storage in the corner of some room. A standard uncluttered Lightbridge would look good in the corner of a room too of course but once you start adding the amount of stuff I have stuck on, it clutters the clean lines of the white Lightbridge and it becomes more important to make your mods as neat and unobtrusive as possible or if thats not possible...as cool as possible and to turn that thing black to hide its size somewhat when its taking up a corner in some room somewhere.

But back to the Stellarvue Finder. I felt it was worth paying the premium. I get one of the finest large apeture finders out there. It makes a very reasonable Rich field scope for observing those extended objects that don't fit in the main scopes lowest mag FOV. Can be used as a spotting scope if affixed to a cheap Alt AZ tripod mount. The other main reason I bought it though is that one can screw off the rotating back with the 1.25" diagonal 90º right angle prism and screw in the supplied 2" Straight thru Helical focuser. Now one can use WF 2" EP's. However the primary use I will put this to, is for attaching a webcam. A webcam or guide-camera would not be able to come to focus with the diagonal in place. In straight thru mode however, a webcam will come to focus. I envisage at outreach, having my Philips SPC900 plugged into the Finderscope and displaying the moon for example on the laptop screen for people to look at and study while they wait in line. Then when they get to the front, they get to look at the High Def Closeup real version through the actual main scope

[Doc]

I have mine in the corner of the conservatory and it does make a very striking piece of furniture and is a great talking point.

Have you looked at the mallincam or the watec videocams they look rather impressive and must be a step up from the phillips.

[calibos]

Your LB was my inspiration actually Mick. Both in terms of the types of mods you did and the neatness and tastefulness of them. It was also those pics of it in your Conservatory where leaving it white was a labour saver and the perfect colour for it to be in its white surroundings.

Big and Beautiful enough to be somewhat noticable and become a talking point but camoflaged enough in the white conservatory to disappear in the corner when ones attention was no longer on the scope.

In my case, the most suitable storage location would be in the Home-Cinema room which is dark, so thats what made me decide to turn the whole thing black seeing as I would be painting parts of it black anyway (Trusses and Endrings etc). It was from there that the Knightrider ideas flowed from.

So ultimately my thoughts on the need for the mods to be neatly and tastefully done and for it to blend into its storage surroundings stemmed from your Conservatory pics.

I was lurking here on SGL following your LB16 threads long before I started posting

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all!

As for them Cams. The webcam is just something I have already and is a testing ground and proof of concept for my future plans. I can definately see a Mallincam in my future alright. Financially it'll have to wait till next year though. Need to clear my Visa card of all my astro expenditure to date though first. I've merely been 'treading water' with the balance for the last while. I don't mean making minimum payments or anything like that. I pay a fair old whack off it every month, its just for the last while, no sooner would I pay off several hundred then I would order another several hundred quids worth of new gear and bits and pieces!

Its the Mallincam plans that made me decide to keep the Equatorial Platform instead of selling it with the Orion XT12i.

Ultimately, this time next year I plan to have put together an Outreach dream machine. Knightrider itself should be long finished. So I'll have this huge Gloss Black scope sitting on my Equatorial Platform. In the Moonlite Motorfocuser will be the Mallincam which will be hooked up to a small 10" Netbook. (Discovered the same as you, balance issues with a big laptop hanging off the side of the scope). However people won't be viewing the images on the tiny netbook screen. The Netbook will merely be forwarding the live colour DSO images to one of those amazing new Pico (Mobile Phone sized) video projectors. Those things are getting better and better every month as new models come to market and are very reasonably priced too at between 2 and 3 hundred quid. By next year, there should be models that tick all my boxes including brightness and image quality. . I'll fabricate a 30" semi opaque back projection screen in a frame with lightshielding which will affix to the wheelbarrow handle clamps on the back of the base. ie the pico projector will be inside this frame, back projecting onto the screen. Basically the thing would like like a big 30" CRT TV mounted to the back of the scope, that only weighs the same as a kite

While the Mallincam while primarily be used in the main scope, for those large DSO's like M42 or the Moon and Planets, the Mallincam will go in the Stellarvue finder.

Heres a simple concept drawing I did a while ago:

[calibos]

My kinda guy!!

http://stargazerslounge.com/equipment-discussion/83152-rear-fan-cell-mod.html

[Doc]

Sounds like a wonderful idea Keith. Where will your netbook be situated as I have to agree balancing a laptop on one side is not ideal. I even went to the hassle of building a counterweight system that contain the same weight as the platform, laptop and eyepieces and balance problems still accured, it also made the tracking lumpy and it drove me mad.

My laptop is going onto a camping table for now.

[PeterW]

Where did you get the JMI TNT? Rough;y how many ££ did it cost.... can't see anyone obviously in the UK selling it.

Cheers.

PEterW

PS You certainly have made a 'talking point'.

[calibos]

Sounds like a wonderful idea Keith. Where will your netbook be situated as I have to agree balancing a laptop on one side is not ideal. I even went to the hassle of building a counterweight system that contain the same weight as the platform, laptop and eyepieces and balance problems still accured, it also made the tracking lumpy and it drove me mad.

My laptop is going onto a camping table for now.

Well actually my laptop on the stand didn't really affect the movement in azimuth. I'd say this was because I have a 2mm spacer abs plastic sheet that comes with the JMI TNT that goes under the Lazy Susan bearing. Takes the teflon pads out of the equation and massively reduces friction so that the JMI azimuth motors work reliably. That combined with the Heavy 26ah battery stored on the opposite side of the base balanced it enough that no torque was applied to the centre azimuth bolt/bushing.

It was more the problem of the big heavy laptop looking like it could topple the scope off the equatorial platform when the platform was at the beginning or end of its run.

A decent Netbook will have more than enough horsepower for the astro applications I would be running on it. Better battery life and would weigh a fraction of the big 17in Dell Vostro Laptop I am using at the moment.

I'll also be able to save weight on the laptop arm. With a smaller Netbook, I don't need all the elbows to position the big laptop clear of fouling the base or OTA. I'll be able to take out a section of the arm, ie join the wrist to the elbow joint after removing the forearm.

Maybe thats all you need to do assuming you still have the counterweight system. Just put a mm or so sheet of something under the lazy susan.

Peter, I bought it direct from JMI along with their Lightbridge Transport Kit and extra counterweights and Light Shroud.

Paid about GBP270 but got hit with customs which added about 21%. Still haven't used it under the stars yet so can't report on whether it was worth the money yet.

[calibos]

As you guys may remember, I really wanted to implement some way to be able to move a filterslide without lifting the scope shroud or reaching in from the front of the 16" Lightbridge. This would have been a bit of a stretch because I have added a permanent Kydex Lightshield to the UTA that extends its lenght 100%

I sat down and had a good brainstorming session. I arrayed spare parts from all sorts of things on the table in front of me and put my thinking cap on. What I came up with was using the drivewheel, axle and gear cog of a warranty replaced azimuth motor from my JMI TNT tracking system, as a manual knob for sliding the filterslide. The gear cog with the teeth filed off and with some rubber from a brush handle glued on as a tyre was the perfect dimensions to engage with the edge of the filterslide with the axle going through the unused bolt holes for non moonlite focusers. Of course I had to Dremel out a slot for the filterslide drivewheel. I also Dremeled the top edge of the filterslide to give the drivewheel the necessary traction.

It worked!! The knob looks like its part of the focuser and now I could change filters from the focuser without reaching in behind the shroud or reaching around the front. However I needed a way to know when a filter was in position without either having to pull out EPs to look down the drawtube or looking down the front of the scope. Both would render the whole filter slide kinda moot. ie. A primary advantage of the filterslide is not having to be removing and reinserting EP's to change filters and to very quickly change from one filter to another to do direct comparisons between one filter view and another. And of course the operation of the filterslide from the focuser without having to reach down the front of the scope is rendered kinda moot if I have to walk around to the front and peer in anyway to check on filter positions.

While I had initially hoped to trigger a different LED light for each filter position I quickly realised it would not be possible with the parts I had to hand and I did not feel like paying several dollars for shipping parts that cost a quarter each! It turns out that the DVD-Rom drive did not die in vain even though I didn't use the motor I stripped from it after all. I found a little Kill Switch inside the drive that was used to shut off the motor when it reached the end of its travel. I mounted this kill switch to the filterslide frame and glued little 'ramps' of plastic to the filterslide at the appropriate positions. When a filter is in the correct position the plastic ramps depress the spring loaded kill switch thus turning off a red LED. I had started to brainstorm how I might reverse this and have the light come on when a filter was in position until I realised that it was actually better the way it was. Who wants a red LED lit up beside their eyeball at the EP. Much better to have the LED on to indicate when a filter is out of position but to switch off when the filter is in position and your are ready to look through the EP.

I mounted the LED in a black metal housing from the unused TNT gearbox which will be affixed beside the focuser. Necessity is the mother of invention 8-) Azimuth dirve wheels for manual knobs, brush handle rubber hand grip for a tyre, kill switch from old DVD rom drive and gearbox housing from motor.8-)

Heres a link to a little video of the filterslide in operation. In the vid I turned the knob with my hand in a position so as not to block the view of the camera. In actual real world use with my hand positioned correctly when turning the knob means I can move from one filter to the next with one twist of the fingers. You'll also note that the LED indicator is very bright. I'll be dimming that down significantly. You may also notice a silver dipswitch below the LED indicator. Thats the on/off switch for my scope mounted Green Laser Pointer. As for the noise. I am hoping a small bit of grease will quieten that down 8-) Theres also some close-up pictures of the focuser/filterslide. The camera flash shows up every spec of dust and tiny blemish.

Heres the Link to the Vid and photos on my Flikr page.

Filterslide - a set on Flickr

[calibos]

Heres some pics of my GLP Mod. Its a 10mw GLP that is scope mounted in a Scopestuff GLP mount. A .925" Dew heater strip underneath keeps it warm and thus the beam at full brightness. It eats batteries (2xAAA) and thus I wanted to power it from the 3v power output of my Dewbuster Dew Controller. Thus I needed to fabricate a dummy battery. Its just a small wooden dowel with a wire through the middle running to a wide head screw on one end and wired to a phono/rca female socket affixed to the lasers cap on the other end. I wrapped the dowel in heatshrink for a neat look and snug fit inside the laser. I actually have a spare unmodded cap from an older broken GLP and thus I can remove the dummy battery and Phono cap and replace with 2 AAA and the unmodded cap to use the GLP handheld too should I want to.

[albedo0.39]

Very interesting mode Keith - getting more "techno jealous" of your scope every moment. I'd like to discuss tube currents and what you have done of your 'scope I.E where to put extraction fans and the like to minimise / optimise their influence. I know the LB has a relatively short L OTA but would be interested in your opinions.

I have plan to mount a single fan at a tangent to the OTA in a NACA arrangement to extract air from the top lip and form a vortex. However, this might be all wrong (I have not studied any theory).

What's your view ?

Steve

[calibos]

Hi Steve,

By tube currents do you mean eddies of air coming off the inside of the metal OTA tube as it cools or are you talking about the pool of warmer boundary layer air that forms over the surface of the mirror until its reached ambient?

I'll deal with both meanings anyway.

In terms of tube currents from the metal OTA, I read about a number of ways of dealing with these and I am applying all of them. Thats not to say I ever noticed tube currents anyway. I figured I may or may not have them or may or may not have a trained enough eye to see them yet. Maybe 9 times out of 10 the atmospheric seeing masks in-scope based negative seeing effects. I am realistic about all my mods. Dealing with them maybe a lot of work for very little visual return for all I know. But the way I looked at it was, I enjoy all this modding malarkey anyway and at least I'll know by dealing with all these whether the return on effort is large or small, that my scope is performing the very best it can. But on the handful of nights a year with near perfect atmospheric seeing, I'll know my scope based seeing isn't ruining the views instead.

The ways I read about dealing with tube currents are as follows. I heard some say that a black scope is better. It gives up its heat quicker to the sky and thus cools faster. Thus the tube currents disappear naturally a lot quicker. Some prefer white scopes which prevent the scope absorbing as much heat during the day and thus are quicker to cool because they have less heat to give up to the sky in the first place. I have a feeling though that neither are wrong, just that one is preferable over the other depending on climate. In hot climes, a white scope is probably better whereas in milder climes like our own, I think black is better.

This is the one of the reasons KNightrider is black

Another method to deal with tube currents I read about is to insulate the inside of the OTA with a layer of cork. I chanced upon a way to go one better when I was about to throw out some old noticeboards. The noticeboard was a felt, corrugated carboard (air trapped inside carboard is excellent insulator) and thin layer of cork sandwich. I stripped off the frames of the noticeboard and put aside the sandwich for use in the scope

It'll also prove useful in terms of flocking. Flocking has a tendency to bubble if laid in a single piece after a few nights under the stars because the warming and cooling metal tube causes it to expand and contract. Thats why its recommended to lay on in strips instead. Its not as easy to do a nice neat flocking job this way though. AN insulator between the OTA and flocking will mean I can put it on in one big sheet.

There is the whole return on effort thing again though. Its probably very likely that flocking alone is good enough to serve two purposes. Contrast improvement and tube current insulation in one. I'm still going to press ahead with the noticeboard insulation though

Another way to deal with tube currents is to baffle your rear primary cooling fan. This both makes the primary cooling more efficient by directing the air across more of the back surface of the mirror instead of it bouncing straight off...and... it forces the air around the mirror edge and up the tube blowing out the tube currents as it goes.

Remember, its not so much turbulence that effects scope based seeing, its more static cells of air at different temperatures with different refractive indexes. Tube currents are slow moving eddies/cells of air that are mixed up quickly by the air blowing up the tube, Mixed up air is the same temperature and thus the same refractive index. Think of it like how you can still be getting fabulous views even though there is a stiff groundlevel breeze blowing.

In terms of boundary layer air. The most common solution is to mount one pair or two pairs of fans in the mirror box blowing across the mirror to scrub off the boundary layer . The one pair guys generally mount two fans on one side blowing and build a trap door on the opposite side of the mirror box to let the air escape. The two pair guys mount one pair blowing on one side and the other pair sucking air out on the other. Easy to implement on wooden square Obsession style scope mirror boxes. Not so easy on metal round Lightbridge OTA's. Certainly not the trap door anyway. I also shied away from drilling holes in the OTA for the blowing and sucking fans.

I decided to try something I haven't seen anywhere else. I got myself some 1/4" qualpex plumbing pipe, some brass T joints and L joints and some garden hose and 4x 40mm computer fans. The fans will be mounted on the same rear baffle as my primary cooling fan with their intake/output ducted into 4 pieces of garden hose that bend up around the back of the mirror into the OTA. The brass fittings make up some of the counterweight I needed to balance the scope and get the air coming through the hoses to the qualpex. A ring of qualpex around the mirror but made of two distinct halves. One side blowing air and one side sucking. The qualpex will have small holes along its length aimed across the mirror. This way 4 little fans provide blowing/sucking across the whole width of the mirror instead of 4 40mm diametre corkscrews of air merely cutting swathes through the boundary layer. On smaller mirrors this is fine. The swathes are close enough and create enough ancilliary turbulence to disrupt the boundary layer across the whole surface. However I have read that on larger mirrors one can actually see how plain fans do indeed just cut swathes through the boundary layer by defocusing on a star and looking at the moving air.

I have a backup plan should I have difficulty in implementing this uniques solution. It'll involve drilling holes in the OTA for fans mounted to the wall of the OTA. Its something I hoped to avoid which is why I came up with my plan above but if I have to I don't mind that much. Anyway, the method I have seen some guys deal with the 'swathe' problem is to fit some variable angle fins infront of the fan like car cabin air vents. These direct the output of the fans across a much larger 'swathe' of the mirror.

So like I said, I am going to great lengths dealing with tube currents which tbh probably don't warrant it, but what the heck However Boundary layer issues are something all Newt owners should try to deal with. Thats what leaving the scope out hours before observing is all about. An ambient temp primary has no boundary layer. But why not both speed up this process with a cooling fan and/or get rid of the boundary layer imediately so one can start observing straight away with the mirror delivering its best as soon as you finish setting up. No having to plan hours in advance and leaving the scope out. No chance of it being drenched in a shower in the interim wqhile it cools. Spontaneity and the mirrors best views are not mutually exclusive!

BTW, You're going to have to explain to me what you mean by 'mounting a fan at a tangent in a NACA arrangement' is before I can give my view on it!

[calibos]

Update on the Intelliscope DSC. Found a problem when I installed it about a fortnight ago. Thought I had found the problem, ie a dud encoder. Just got the replacement today. It wasn't!! I am not sinking anymore money into it to try and get it to work. Its a shame. My mounting method was perfect. Its some dud electronics in the Intelliscope thats letting me down.

With the SVP intelliscope no longer on sale, I'd have to purchase an aftermarket DSC like a Sky Commander or Argo Navis. I have thus decided to bite the bullet and go the whole hog and fit a servocat too. The TNT is coming off. I modded the base so much to suit the TNT that I'll have to leave on the TNT roller bearings and a few other parts to use with the Servocat. I am cutting my losses and not going to order replacements to sell on with the TNT. TNT cost 300. JMI will proably want 60 or 70 (S&H incl.) for new bearings. I can't really ask for more than half what I paid if I sell on the TNT, So realistically I'll only see about 80 back on the original 300 outlay. I think I'll hold onto the parts. I am sure I will come up with some innovative use for them in the future

So ultimately poormans object location and tracking cost me dearly About 380 for the Intelliscope and TNT.

Hindsights a wonderful thing but I only wish I had decided to fork up the cash for the servocat and Skycommander in the first place.

[albedo0.39]

Hi Keith - a NACA duct is like this... it's a way of admiting air into a surface without a scoop. Effectively, it forms a depression into which air rushes. So, I had in mind a way to draw boundary layer air accross the top of the L-OTA without cutting massive chunks out of the metal. However, I'm thinking that a lot of this may not be entirely necessary as my 'scope is stored in well ventilated, unheated perfectly dry garage - outside and not attached to the house.

I.e. it's always at ambient. So, in this instance, I'm thinking there is no / low differential between T.amb and T.mirr so the localised heating will be minimal.

What are your thoughts ?

I'm more concerned about potential issues of stagnant air (??) in and around the mirror causing a "haze" in the seeing. Perhaps I'm being too fussy ? Finally.. I never use my fan (reasons are above) but support the idea of shrouding it to eunsure the air does it's job.

Good info - thanks for posting

[calibos]

Hi Steve.

Indeed the easiest solution to boundary layer air is for it not to form in the first place and thus the ideal scenario is a scope stored at ambient. You seem to have that one pretty much covered. Tbh I do reckon implementing a boundary layer solution might be a lot more trouble than its worth for you. You are 99% there anyway with a near ambient scope. Even if your scope is not quite at ambient being inside an unheated outbuilding, I reckon a quick blast with the primary fan while you set up will quickly cool the mirror the rest of the way and any boundary layer that formed will have disipatted by the time you start to observe. Boundary Layer solutions are for those of us that have to store the scope inside and the temperature delta is much greater and we don't want to wait 2 hours or so before the mirror cools enough for the boundary to disappear naturally and for the mirror to start delivering its best.

I note you talked about the NACA duct, Top of OTA, and boundary layer in the same sentance. Just to clarify. Tube currents and Boundary layer are two different things and dealt with differently. Both affect the views like Atmospheric seeing because they are all about air in the lightpath at different temperatures with different refractive indexes diffracting the light like a straw in a glass of water. IN the case of atmospheric seeing its cells of air at different temperatures within the light column between space and the front of your scope. Tube currents are eddies of air coming off the inside of the OTA cooled by your cold metal OTA to a lower temperature than most of the air within your OTA. (different temp, different refractive index). Boundary layer air is basically a puddle of warmer air sitting a mm above your primary mirror surface. Its air that his been heated by your cooling primary mirror. Its a bit warmer than the ambient air within the OTA so again, different temp, different refractive index

But anyway, further discussion is probably moot. Your flocking has probably sorted the tube currents and your ambient stored scope means little or no boundary layer to begin with. You're sorted mate

[albedo0.39]

Hi Keith - great to know that my theory of outside storage and flocking seems to alleviate known issues with this size of scope. I got my first ever view of Jupiter the other evening and saw the horrid effect of terrible seeing. The image literally moved and shimmered like you see in films. Yuk.

I have never used the fan as I don't have the battery case for it, is it 12v ?

[calibos]

Yep, its 12v.

Made some more progress on the OTA. No internal work yet but did paint the endrings and the trusses and applied the vinyl wrap and then fit a lot of the accessories back on.

Please excuse the state of the room. The dining room has been converted to my workshop for the last few months and the whole house is being gutted for renovation. So I didn't bother putting down dust sheets while spraying The room is like a tip Its why I am accelerating progress by working on the scope every spare minute cause my scope workshop will be no more. We have to move out in September while the work is going on!

Anyway, heres where I am now.......

And remember, this is what the scope started out like......

[calibos]

Quick update.

Good News Recieved my Servocat drive and SkyCommander DSC today.

Even Better News Didn't get hit for customs and VAT saving me 325 euros I thought I was going to have to hand out!!

[Doc]

Nice one Keith...

When are you planning to actually look through the scope

[calibos]

LOL

I think the mirrors need recoating at this stage.

All joking aside. Theres an IYA2009 event near the end of the Month. That'll probably be real first light. (might have a testing first light a week or so before that though)