Thanks everyone for the thoughts and discussion, that was my purpose for putting up the review. Manufacturers ought to take more notice of feed back.
Both Dave and I have conversed quite a lot about the issues. It's been great to bounce ideas off each other to try to find the problems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
Hi Paul
........Does it play up everywhere or just some orientations?
If so that is reasonable...........pointing straight up should work ok??
...
....
alex
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It's a non repeatable problem. In part of the sky the eastern imaging may be ok and on the west terrible, or the meridian might be terrible and parts of either eastern or western are good. The problem can be minor to down right infuriating. Each imaging run has resulted in hours of data being ditched. I have been generally doing research work on some part of the night and then pretty picture images on the part of the sky that I know is ok for that particular object. Trying to work around the problem a little.
Quote:
Originally Posted by peter_4059
Paul, thanks for the review. I was interested to hear your comments re needing to change out the focuser - I'm assuming you are referring to your NiteCrawler? How did you determine the focuser was flexing when you also have issues with the focuser mounting plate?
The youtube video for the Nitecrawler has a demonstration of it holding position with a 16lb load. You must have a heavy camera!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azcv1b6u3jo |
No it'd not the nitecrawler, that is on the RC and that works fine. It's holding up the STXL, with filter wheel, filters and the AOX. It's a tank. The problem was with the 2.5" heavy duty Moonlite Newtonian focuser. That could not hold the load very well. Ron has apparently made some modifications to those focusers now.
I could easily move the draw tube up and down with that particular focuser.
Quote:
Originally Posted by glend
Dave how much weight is hanging off the side of that top section? I get the impression from the GSO build that they are expecting folks to use a DSLR (non-modded, non-cooled), or something like an ASI1600 and filter wheel as its heaviest load.
I wonder if you were just doing manual focus and rotation with a light camera, would the scope design be ok?
Given Paul's experiences with GSO scopes, it seems that they do not test with these sort of imaging loads (or perhaps don't test at all). Do we need to accept that these are not Planewave category scopes, but basic designs built to a budget entry point with reasonable optics?
I agree there is a limited market for customisers to step in and take a basic scope and hotrod it. Sort of like Holden's HSV unit. Is the volume there to justify a business line for TS or others? Obviously, someone like Paul could become that customiser, if that excited him. 
That leads to asking, if you have to invest to upgrade, why not just buy the high end scope in the first place? Or is it the challenge of making a stock budget production model into an HSV? |
I have the QSIWSG-8 with filter wheel, adapters and Atlas focuser. Not a huge load but perhaps enough to cause flex.
Yeah there is a price point issue here but it should hold a QSI as a minimum. No one expected it to hold a big camera. Though you're right you would expect a few mods to be done but not a total rebuild.
Having bought a high end scope (well I hope so, it is yet to ship) it cost nearly 12000 more dollars, so I am expecting something a lot better. I know their secondary assemblies are better in any event. It is just the optics that might be risky.