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Old 03-10-2009, 06:17 PM
jasonh
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Very cool - did you do all the design and machining yourself?
Yes, its a knock off of an RCOS scope, thats where that basic design came from but it's all done by me and the machining by myself. I wish my mill and lather was CNC though
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  #42  
Old 03-10-2009, 06:18 PM
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Very cool. Are they carbon trusses?, and did you have access to a CNC machine?.
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Old 03-10-2009, 06:20 PM
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They are carbon trusses, I had them made by a company in auckland. About 27NZD each. I made them too long, they will loose a reasonable amount of length..

No CNC, just hours of turning wheels on the machines
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Old 03-10-2009, 06:23 PM
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Rental scopes are not cheating, however i dont think data acquired through a rental setup should be allowed to be entered into imaging competitions... If you didnt set up the mount, get it aligned, get the scope collimated, work out any issues like field curvature, guiding problems, focus etc, then you should not be able to win awards for the quality of image the setup achieved.. I personally would love to use one of the GRAS scopes or one of the Lightbuckets scopes one day to capture an image that my gear would not be capable of...
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Old 03-10-2009, 06:24 PM
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Very neat work then. Then next question of course is, where did you get the RC mirrors ? (or did you grind them yourself;-).
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  #46  
Old 03-10-2009, 06:29 PM
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Heh, I am not a grinder.. I wouldn't mind one day but my problem is that I would want to bite off something bigger then I could chew..

I got the mirror set from Paul Jones at Star Instruments, I see that you have an rcos in your signature so there is a good chance your's came from the same place.

Jason
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  #47  
Old 03-10-2009, 06:45 PM
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... get it aligned, get the scope collimated, work out any issues like field curvature, guiding problems, focus etc.....
Alex

You (and others) seem to be making a broad assumption that all the above will somehow be done better with a commercial service than by yourself, why is that?.
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Old 03-10-2009, 06:46 PM
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multiweb (Marc)
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Originally Posted by jasonh View Post
Yes, its a knock off of an RCOS scope, thats where that basic design came from but it's all done by me and the machining by myself. I wish my mill and lather was CNC though
Man, I admire your machining skills. Something that I would love to learn how to do.
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Old 03-10-2009, 06:49 PM
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Originally Posted by jasonh View Post
Heh, I am not a grinder.. I wouldn't mind one day but my problem is that I would want to bite off something bigger then I could chew..

I got the mirror set from Paul Jones at Star Instruments, I see that you have an rcos in your signature so there is a good chance your's came from the same place.

Jason
Yes indeed, wow thats impressive, I didnt know you, as an amature, could buy just mirrors from him. If you get this right, you may well have found yourself a tidy little earner
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  #50  
Old 03-10-2009, 07:06 PM
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I know someone who'd be interested in a 10" RC with Star Instruments optics and an OTA that looks like that if the price is right

Fred - A few guys in the US have built RC's using star instruments optics... one guy built a 20" robotic RC... that was insane... electric secondary mirror focus and collimation, temperature regulation, built in heaters... looked just like an RCOS....

As does Jasons' Its a very nice looking scope mate... you've done yourself proud.
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  #51  
Old 03-10-2009, 08:03 PM
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Nice piece of work Jason. As far as I'm aware, there seems to be very little information on building Ritchey Chretiens - if I understand things correctly, the mirrors (and of course, there shaping) make distances between them very specific, with little or no tolerance. Are there any good instructions/designs on the web that talk about making this sort of telescope design?

Dave
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  #52  
Old 03-10-2009, 08:47 PM
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Crikey ! What a top job Jason
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  #53  
Old 04-10-2009, 07:15 AM
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Thanks guys, I guess I am taking this thread off topic so if you like I will create a thread later today in ATM and put some pics in..

I lied though, I put in one pic that had a BT technologies dovetail plate for a FSQ. I decided to use that as part of the scope and didnt do that one myself..
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  #54  
Old 04-10-2009, 08:11 AM
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Originally Posted by Bassnut View Post
Alex

You (and others) seem to be making a broad assumption that all the above will somehow be done better with a commercial service than by yourself, why is that?.

I suppose when you're paying a fair bit of money to use a professional level setup you do assume that it will be collimated and aligned properly, and not have all of the problems that the amateur deals with in their own setup.. Having said that, as I mentioned in my previous post, I think its always better to have done these things yourself. When you've stacked your image, processed it, and had it printed and framed, you can look at it and think...

I bought the setup, ironed out glitches, got it aligned, framed and focused the shot how I wanted it, took the exposures, processed them, and produced the image that is now on my wall...

Its very fulfilling.
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Old 04-10-2009, 09:10 AM
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IMHO, there is no difference between renting and buying your own equipment.
If you are spending significant money to own something (that will be used couple of times in a year) you may as well go a bit further and rent the already adjusted collimated etc gear. The results will be much more cost effective... The worst approach (money-wise of course) is building your own equipment.
Actually, you may even order the image, because the equipment operator can be considered as part of the renting equipment (being this a human operator or computer).
This is exactly what professional astronomers are doing. Does this make them "cheaters" or "criminals" even?
Of course not.

Those things are very individual obviously... and the only thing that matters is the enjoyment in doing it.

That is why the results (images) obtained like this can not possibly be compared (unless they are used for science.. which is totally different thing then).. and all those competitions are pretty much nonsense. Those people should just stop beating around the bushes and just present their bank accounts, to shorten the competition procedures.

The only real difference is ATM.

Last edited by bojan; 04-10-2009 at 04:23 PM.
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  #56  
Old 04-10-2009, 03:39 PM
jasonh
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Hi all, so I dont take this thread off topic I started one in the ATM section, pop over there if you were interested in my project. I will post some more later on after the F1!
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  #57  
Old 04-10-2009, 04:38 PM
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I don't use or want to use the rental scopes but I do see why some people do.
Not all of the use is for pretty pictures. Lots of data submitted to the AAVSO for transient phenomena seems to come from GRAS scopes. Often this is from northern hemisphere people looking at southern stars.
I don't know if the price is the same as for pretty pic data but it is nice to see some science data coming from the rental scopes.
Yep, remote scopes are becoming essential tools for all sorts of transient phenomena. Fairly cheap too if you're just looking for a few seconds data, but no doubt expensive if you're getting hours of LRGB etc.

Hope to get into it at a later stage. All sorts of benefits - northern comets/novae no longer out of range, still get data on a cloudy night, follow objects for longer than your 'allotted' dark hours...

Quote:
Bojan:
Those things are very individual obviously... and the only thing that matters is the enjoyment in doing it.
Think that says it all!

Cheers -
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  #58  
Old 04-10-2009, 07:33 PM
jase (Jason)
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Online astronomy comes of age...

Astronomy mag - November 2009 - Lightbuckets article.

Whether you like rental scopes or not, they are here to stay and are only going to expand as demands continue to increase (or should I say our dark skies decrease due to population and lack of light pollution governance, etc).
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  #59  
Old 10-10-2009, 10:15 AM
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Whatever you get enjoyment from is valid for sure.

I personally like the chosing, the setup and handling of the gear and being hands on. I like the night environment as normal life is so based around doing things during the day.

Night at a remote dark site is very quiet and peaceful and has its own reward.

Too much time in front of a computer is not ideal these days in a spectator based society that doesn't always do a lot.

There is also a lot of skill in handling all the bits and pieces and making it all work as we all know. Still the top gear is very unreal in terms of cost so the rental companies provide a service there that is hard to match.

Greg.
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