10" Serrurier truss scope update with QSI 683 mounted

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Hi All,

I thought I would post a couple of images of some improvements I made to the 10" Serrurier truss scope I built last year (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=74690)

First of all I now got to mount my new QSI 683wsg on the scope, that in itself deserved a couple of shots

Then I also made a proper mounting for my 120mm anti-dew fan that blows across the secondary. It had been hanging in some rubber bands which were more or less disintegrating by now... I added a frame made from a black styrene sheet around it and mounted it properly with four strong pieces of rubber from a bicycle tube. This kind of rubber is very durable and doesn't degrade, unlike the cheap flimsy brown rubber bands.

Lastly I fitted a larger 70mm secondary, so there are a couple of shots of that too (with a cover on that I made from a piece of downpipe and more styrene)

Images are also added to the galleries here: http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/10_in...tube_newtonian
And here: http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/qsi683wsg8_test_images

Cheers,
Rolf

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Nice set up mate. It would be lovely to house my scope into a nice little obs Life would be sooooo much easier.

bm

[RickS (Rick)]

Creative use of guitar strings

[DavidU (Dave)]

Nice work ! The guitar strings look like .009" or .010" Ernie Ball.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Fabulous looking piece of work there Rolf, very well done, looks like a work of art and with some cleaver features, you look to have come of age and moved up into the big league too

Mike

[alistairsam]

Nice Work Rolf. Looking good.
How effective is the secy Dew fan? first impression is that it'll "blow" photons away!!, pun intended, but better than a secy heater solution.
Is that a single 5kg or 10kg counterweight? Are you able to balance the OTA, camera, finder with that single counterweight?

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

Nice set up mate. It would be lovely to house my scope into a nice little obs Life would be sooooo much easier.
bm

Thanks Brendan, yeah I can tell you building the obs was the best thing I ever did.

Originally Posted by RickS

Creative use of guitar strings

Thank you Rick

Originally Posted by DavidU

Nice work ! The guitar strings look like .009" or .010" Ernie Ball.

Thank you David, they are 0.09" D'Addario. I used 0.08" strings before but I had to get the secondary holder out when I replaced my secondary mirror recently and so I decided to get new strings too and the shop didn't have any thinner than 0.09" (it's much easier to work with new ones when stringing the spider) I don't see any noticable difference in the diffraction pattern though.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Fabulous looking piece of work there Rolf, very well done, looks like a work of art and with some cleaver features, you look to have come of age and moved up into the big league too
Mike

Thanks very much Mike I have been slowly improving my setup bit by bit, now I really only need a new primary mirror. Hopefully in the next couple of months!

Originally Posted by alistairsam

Nice Work Rolf. Looking good.
How effective is the secy Dew fan? first impression is that it'll "blow" photons away!!, pun intended, but better than a secy heater solution.
Is that a single 5kg or 10kg counterweight? Are you able to balance the OTA, camera, finder with that single counterweight?

Thanks Alistair, yes I balance everything with a single 21 lb counterweight. The truss OTA is very lightweight despite its rather solid appearance
The dew fan is extremely effective. Without the fan my secondary will dew up rather easily, but only on one occasion did I get dew with the fan on. But that was in near 100% humidity and fog rolled in shortly after so not much hope anyway.
I have never heard of others using fans on a secondary though, don't know why?

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Nice one Rolf, looks like I've got some catching up to do. You have a nice setup there. Of course we will be expecting even better pix than before, no pressure ...

I've got a wee fan aimed at my secondary but haven't had the opportunity to test it's effectiveness yet. By the looks of yours mine may be inadequate, soon see. Easy enough to mod. I have at least 20 of them in various sizes and plenty more available. I have some so small you could mount them behind the spider easily and they would not extend outside the hub diameter. Give us a yell if you need any to play with.

Cheers
Brent

[traveller (Bo)]

A work of art Rolf, the secondary "holder" is just genius.
Bo

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

I have the skills and knowledge to put together a ror/dome obs but i just don't have the plot to put one. So for me as good as i get is leaving the mount set up so i can just drop the scope on and go. Faster but not as good because i can't tune it to the N th degree and do funky things like yourself!

Soon.... soon