Bintel GSO BT252 F4 Carbon Truss

[weathermon]

Hi guys, I'm looking at purchasing the Bintel GSO BT252 10" F4 Carbon Truss Newtonian to upgrade my current steel newt, does anyone have this and any issues with it? https://www.bintel.com.au/product/bintel-gso-bt252-f4-carbon-truss-newtonian/

I currently have a 10" F5 GSO steel OTA and while it works ok, it suffers really badly from tube flex when slewing (collimation goes out of alignment), so looking at something a lot more rigid. It'll be carrying a ZWO ASI1600MM Pro, 7 position filter wheel, ZWO OAG and Orion SSAG for autoguiding. I'll also swap over my Moonlite 2" focuser to this.

There's a 4 month wait minimum at the moment for it because of a parts shortage, so plenty of time to make up my mind.

Cheers, Mike

[glend]

I would bet your collimation shift in your GSO Newt is simply due to weak primary support springs. Have you upgraded your primary springs? For a few dollars at Bunnings you might solve your problem.
GSO newts and Dobs are notorious for having less than adequate primary spring strength.

[Startrek]

I bought an 8” f5 GSO newt from Bintel 18 months ago for imaging and have no issues at all
Primary springs were excellent , and I fitted a 16” DUP losmandy dovetail bar which spread the tube rings another 100mm apart compared to the crappy GSO bar
I agree with Glen , the GSO newts before 2018 had poor quality primary springs
I had to upgrade them on my 4 year old 6” f6 GSO newt with custom made springs from a company called Better Springs in Sydney ( couldn’t find anything in Bunnings that would do the job ) I paid $13 a spring but they were machined with the exact coil size , length and perfect tension. I hardly ever need to collimate this Scope

Try upgrading your primary springs if your newt was purchased before 2018 and also spread your tube rings wider with a big solid losmandy bar

Good luck !!

[weathermon]

I haven't done upgrades on the primary springs with it no, but the focuser was flexing quite badly on the tube itself, so I re-enforced it with 1.6mm thick aluminium. That made it a bit better, but the temperature shift plus the thin aluminium is still a bit of an issue unfortunately. I might invest in some upgraded springs though as it'll be Sep till there's stock anyway, so if there's anything I can do to help improve the issues I'm having, then I'll do that.



Interesting! Yeah I also upgraded to the 16" Losmandy dovetail too, plus put the old GSO dovetail on top to stiffen it up a bit more. I might have to check out getting springs for sure - I always thought that the locking levers once they were done up helped to lock the mirror cell in place. One thing I did note though on the last clean was that the cork either side of the primary mirror had shrunk causing mirror flop. Should I look at replacing this too or nothing to worry about?

Cheers

[Startrek]

Can only help support the mirror if you replace the cork spacers
Bunnings have round ones of all sizes as I have replaced mine a while back
Also helps with back focus , I used 4mm thick x 20mm diameter ones ( heavy duty )
Cheers