Something else to have a go at

[geppetto]

Got my little Antares MC70 Mak Cas back at the weekend (son borrowed it for his Scotland holiday)

Made a bracket for it to sit on my barn door tracker and skies permitting, hope to have a play at

grabbing some DSO's with my LX Toucam stuck in the back.

Its a 70mm F8.5 so it should be a challenge and a bit of fun.

I have seen a few globulars through it visually.

It weighs in at 800gm and the barn door doesn't even notice its there 8)

Just been tracking the sun for 15 minutes (baader solar filter up front) and all

seems fine

If I catch anything, I'll post them up...

[Ant]

Looks really smart Phillip.

Got to keep pushing the boundary haven't you?

Good luck and I look forward to seeing the results...

Ant

[GordonCopestake]

That looks pretty good Phil, i do like that barn door tracker. Beats manual guiding!

[The Warthog]

What did you do to motorize that Barn Door tracker? Was it a complicated thing with circuit boards, etc. or did you find a simpler solution. I am assuming it is motorized.

[GordonCopestake]

It's usually a stepper motor or a normal motor with a 1 RPM gearing

[geppetto]

Yep, its a stepper motor out of a scrap HP printer.

It has got some circuit boards WH, one to drive the

stepper and one to supply the timing pulses.

Runs off a 6 volt battery and is portable in that it will

sit on a tripod but its own 4*4 post is the favourite nesting place.

[GordonCopestake]

It's a great bit of kit phil. How do you polar align it?

[geppetto]

Gordon

If you look at the picture, just above and running parallel

with the hinge is a length of 6mm id chrome tube.

I peer up that till I eyeball the pole star. On a good night,

I go a tad further and do a drift align.

There are markers on the pier top now, so usually I set the beast

down to these marks and away we go

[GordonCopestake]

Ahhhhh, good thinking! A poor mans polarscope! More than enough for widefield shots with a DSLR and i bet more than enough for a 595mm scope