Mirror's arrived and now the fun starts

[geppetto]

Big leap forward today...

Tacked the base bits together and put the ALT blocks at the scope's

balance point.

Put the scope roughly on the mount to check balance and clearances and pleased

to say it goes together very well.

Now the scope is mounted I find that I can lower the height of the mount by at least

5" which is a good thing 8).

Next step is to glue the formica to the ALT blocks and find the right place for the Teflon pads.

[LITTLE COL]

looks to me like your onto a big winner there phill , looks amazing

good luck i'll be watching this space

little col

[Caz]

Looking good Phil, are you leaving it as is, or will you paint it?

Have you thought about doing a 'Build your own telescope' primer, not sure if there is one, but I'm sure there are members out there, wanting to give it a go, but don't know where to start?

Caz

[GordonCopestake]

Looks good phil! How about a pic with you in the image for scale? (With or without the platform shoes!)

[geppetto]

Caz

Yep, will be painting it at some stage.

MDF is a bit vulnerable to damp

Gordon

Will stick myself in for scale a bit further down the line

It looks as though the eyepiece will be at eye level when pointing straight up

so the heavy MDF on the bottom OTA box has proved to be a winner with getting

the centre of gravity low down...

Will be knocking together an adjustable stool to go with the scope before I pack the tools away 8)

[LITTLE COL]

hmm do you know where you can obtain these adjustable stools from and are they available?

[GordonCopestake]

An observing chair is easily made up using MDF and a pair of hinges. A man of your talents should have no trouble making one (and selling them too probably!)

[LITTLE COL]

hhmmm might look into that invention thing maybee it can be based on a pin system that lets you higher and lower it in an internal tube system ,( got to have a back rest though)

:)

[GordonCopestake]

Do a google for "Denver chair" col

[LITTLE COL]

yeah that seems the baby maybee i will have a go at designing a similar lightweight model sometime!!

[geppetto]

Measured the clearance needed for the bottom OTA box to swing into the mount

and reworked the mount to loose 8.5" off its height.

Now it really is low to the ground and stable 8)

The height from ground to eyepiece with the scope straight up is 5' 6"

so its going to be a comfortable scope to use

[geppetto]

Scope in its "stowed away" position....

[GordonCopestake]

Excellent Phil, 5' 6" is perfect. I look forward to your denver chair too!

[geppetto]

Not had time to stick the Formica strips on but have

fitted some teflon pads.

Even without the formica, the OTA swishes up and down in

ALT like a dream 8)

Sky is clear at the moment so hoping to give the unfinished

QDD a look at the stars

[Martin 2]

I'm very impressed with your workmanship Phil, cracking job that.

M2

[Astroman]

Do a google for "Denver chair" col

You can visit my website for some improvements to the basic Denver chair design. I've built and sold several dozen of them. I think it's in the "Stone Haven Observatory" pages.

[GordonCopestake]

Have you got a link AM? Had a look but couldn't find it. Saw the excellent binocular chair though! WOW!

[geppetto]

Its here Gordon, thanks for the link AM

http://members.tripod.com/denverastro/seat.html

[geppetto]

Well, the weather gods must have thought I needed a little treat tonight.

Lovely sky so setup the QDD for a quick look round.

No AZ bearing yet but it slithered around quite easily and the ALT bearing works fine.

Lovely views for first light, M57 stood out well in my 26mm 2" eyepiece, M31 was awesome

a definite shape to it rather than just a blob.

M13 was a snowball of stars and M27 stood out well with a definite applecore shape.

To round things of, I put in my 2" 50mm eyepiece and stared in wonder at the double cluster.

What a great start for a not quite finished new scope 8)

Time to put everything away and plan the next job to do on the scope.

One very happy MDF basher

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Big cheer from here Phil. Great result, and you haven't even finished it yet.

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Formica tyres glued to the ALT blocks

I was going to make these blocks into two thirds of a circle arcs but

now I know the weight of the scope, I decided to leave them as full

circles. One of them will have an ALT setting circle fitted and at 12"

diameter, it should be a high resolution scale

[lunator]

Fantastic progress Phil.

The scope is looking great.

CHeers

ian

[geppetto]

Thanks Ian

Put the teflon blocks on the bottom AZ board and found

some 12mm stud to make a centre pin from.

Bit later on, will fit three feet to the underside of the AZ board

so it stands level.

[Astroman]

I cut hockey pucks in half and use 3, but I don't suppose you get a lot of those "over there". The material is almost identical to the "vibration suppressor" blocks you can buy for your tripod legs.

[geppetto]

That's a cool idea AM 8)

Noted in my scribble book...

Took the scope out tonight to try the AZ movement and it works

like a dream.

Big scope but easy to move in both axis 8)

The QDD treated me to an awesome view of comet Swan so things

get better and better