home built equatorial mount

[siriuslyfuzzy]

hi .. does any one else have a home made job ?
i knocked this up outa push bike parts

please give a star rating ..i think 5 stars for the welding alone !!

i just purchased a c8 .. is this a good begginners scope ??
and do you think this mount will work ?
regards mick

p.s. i have a coupla uni cycles going cheap ... any offers

[Kevnool]

Very nice sculpture....did you name it?.....cheers Kev.

[siriuslyfuzzy]

hi mate was thinkin sorta ..mulga bills 4 a name ..you didnt rate
will it werk ?

[dannat]

looks great - what color you gonna paint it?

[Lester]

I give you a 5 out of 5 for effort.

Will it work?? With a C8, = I don't think so. Without the dimentions of the shafts of both axis, it is a bit hard to say though.

The C8 is a great scope to begin with. I presume your C8 is just the OTA, and no mount?

The first mount I made to put a 8" newtonian on, began swaying with just the tube and no optics. Your mount, to me looks far better than what I tried.

[siriuslyfuzzy]

i was thinkin blue .. missus is a dogs fan ... or marone for manly .. i a tigers fan but .. I one manly in our work callcutta .. payed 35 bucks 4 them winner tAKES ALL $210 BUCKS .. GO MANLY .... MAYBE I SHOULD PAINT BLACK .. I DONT WANT REFLEXTION ISSUES WITH THIS ONE ... CHEERS

[siriuslyfuzzy]

BOTH AXISESES ???
I GOT 4 ? DONT TELL ME I REINVENTED THE WHEEL SO TO SPEAK ??

SO MUCH FOR RETRIGRADE MOTION I THINK I GOT IT COVERED !
THANKS FOR THE STAR RATING !!

[TrevorW]

I wouldn't subject a C8 to the ridicule of being mounted by this

:lol::lol::lol:

[Rick Petrie]

Seriously "what the":shrug::)

[siriuslyfuzzy]

i showed you mine ... show me yours

[leon]

Here ya go,

Leon

[Rick Petrie]

Damn....I took an axe to mine!!!

[siriuslyfuzzy]

nice job mate
i can see me having another go at one .. i was thinking car stub axles ..
your angled base plate is fixed to match your lattitude ?.. and i cant see that concrete block moving

[GrampianStars]

:whistle: Mick
looks to be water pipes praying to the rain gods :lol:
something like this would be better.
Maybe the bike saddle :doh: set at your latitude angle mounted on a pipe

[Barrykgerdes]

I just took a look at Leon's

Now if he took an axe to that and took it down to an art shop and said it was aboriginal art he should get enough to by us all new mounts.;):)

Barry

[leon]

Can't do that Barry I actually sold the whole set up to a fellow from IIS some time ago. ;)

Have to agree though, I thought it looked quite handsome when the whole thing was set up. :eyepop:

Now I have to put up with, just a G11 and Tak. :lol: :lol:

Leon. :thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

Leon great mount straight out of Edmunds "all about telescopes" built one myself 30 years ago

[leon]

Yep Trevor I got the idea out of a book, by another name, some 30 plus years ago as well, back in the 70's if I recall correctly. ;) gees I'm getting old. after reflecting on those years. :lol:

Leon :thumbsup:

[Barrykgerdes]

I built started to build an equatorial mount about 15 years ago out of 4" water pipe and the parts of a landcruiser diff I paid $10 for at motor wreckers. The RA and Dec axes were machined for preloaded Timken roller bearings and the main shafts made out of the axles. Boy those axles were tough. The Silicon carbide tool ran red hot in the lathe. I ended up welding mild steel collars onto the shafts to make bearing surfaces and cutting off the surplus with a cutting disk.

I never ever finished it and I think it is still rusting in the back yard of the old house. Mum unexpectedly gave back the money I loaned her to buy a house and I got myself a 10" LX200 classic with the then new 64000 objects.

Barry

[siriuslyfuzzy]

i am glad you didnt waste mums money ... so no pics of offroad equatorial i guess

[Wavytone]

Here's something I made a LOOOONG time ago. Some of you (older members) may recall seeing this in S&T. The smaller scope is a 6" f/18 folded Newtonian, the longer one is a conventional 6" f/8 Newtonian for comparison. http://gallery.me.com/nicholas.loveday#100200

(and now you know who I am).

The mount was made for me by a friend with a backyard workshop, he was a bit of a nut. He had made a 12" Cassegrain the hard way, and I had assisted with the mirror grinding, polishing and figured his secondary, in return he made me an equatorial head which had 1.5" steel shafts running in bronze bush bearings.

He smelted the alloy for the worm drive (it was a 10" worm BTW) from chunks of Duralumin that I obtained by smashing up an old engine block with a sledge hammer, cast the disks and machined it as described in the ATM books. The furnace was adapted from a backyard barbie built from Besser blocks (we lined it with firebricks) and a vacuum cleaner running in reverse provided a forced draft, with a coke fire we had enough heat to melt the alloy nicely in a covered crucible. What we did was bloody dangerous in retrospect, but it worked out OK. We had realised the melting point of an alloy like duralumin was lower than the melting point all of its constituents, so it was quite easy to smelt this stuff.

The tripod was made from jarra floorboards, it fitted in my station wagon in one piece when I went bush. I also had made a "lawn trolley" using three nice fat wheels off a kids tricicycle. They don't make them like that any more. The tripod was essentially a tetrahedron, very solid and beat anything i have seen since.

Normally the mount carried a 8" f/7 Newtonian and one or other of the 6" scopes. After moving to Sydney I swapped it for a C8 which I soon realised was a huge mistake - the 8" and the folded 6" were vastly better.

When I see people suggesting an 8" scope on a mount like the EQ6 I have the vague feeling they have no idea what a really solid mount is... the old rule was the diameter of the worm wheel should be the same as the 'scope aperture, OR LARGER, and the axes at least 15% of the aperture, and I think these are still true....

[montewilson]

Not a bad effort at all. The accuracy and performance will be affected by the rigidity of the vertical pole. Depending on the weight of the instrument, you may need to go up in thickness.

[h0ughy]

looks like the clouds have yet taken another victim...............

[bojan]

Yes..
Today (in our consumer society) it seems people do not have patience nor confidence to try to do things properly, in amateur way. Money solves every problem (or does it?).

[siriuslyfuzzy]

Dunno Mate ... But I Could Take The Jump If You Have Some To Spare ?