View Single Post
  #12  
Old 11-07-2008, 06:02 PM
tempestwizz's Avatar
tempestwizz (Brian)
Registered User

tempestwizz is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Vientiane, Laos
Posts: 235
Hope it works as well as it looks.

I don't want to throw rain into the parade, but I would be worried about differential flexure in your system. I have suffered this with my own system, and the aluminium cross plate is around 13mm thick. Yours appears somewhat thinner.
At first I thought there was a problem with the guiding software, but I eventually tracked it down to flexure. The guide scope was working, and guiding, but the imaging scope was not keeping up, or getting ahead, or twisting to the side etc., with the affect of stretching the imaged stars in longer exposures.
Once I figured the problem out, by stiffening everything up, and careful balancing of the individual components, I reduced it to an acceptable level, but it is still a weakness that needs to be considered.
For anyone building a similar system, I would encourage making the cross plate as thick and stiff as possible.
HTH
BC
Reply With Quote