moonlite changeover

[Shiraz]

After a year of running in pretty dusty conditions, the original Skywatcher focuser on my CF scope was showing the first signs of wear, so I decided to replace it with a somewhat more substantial Moonlite.

The new focuser arrived within a week and then it took less than an hour to remove the original, bolt in the Moonlite, connect up Dave Trewren's magic stepper controller and reset a few parameters in the drive software. The most amazing thing was that everything just worked, the mechanicals fitted, the focal plane was in the right place, the software still worked perfectly - even the collimation was very close, requiring just a minor tweak on the secondary. I was back imaging with no real delay at all :thumbsup:

Kudos to Moonlite for prompt service and excellent gear and to Dave for his remarkable controller design - and I guess to Skywatcher for making such a stable OTA.

[RickS]

It's nice when things just work, Ray. A rare occurrence when it comes to astro gear :lol:

[Paul Haese]

Any high end focusor is a pleasure to use Ray, but I still enjoy my moonlite which I bought 7 years ago.

[Shiraz]

never happened to me before - it all just went completely smoothly.


yes, I have had one on my planetary scope for a few years - they are quite solid and effective. Not that the Skywatcher focuser did anything wrong, it was just that the linear bearing was gumming up a bit (not as smooth as it used to be) and I didn't fancy standing down the whole system while I worked out how to clean and reassemble it (will now do so at my leisure). It still worked fine with the 1.1kg imaging train.
What amazed me was that the old and new focusers were obviously aligned identically, the "compatible" drive box actually was fully compatible, and the software parameters could be changed with no drama at all. First time I have ever done a significant upgrade and not found a single "gotcha" .