Saturn 2nd Dec from Tassie

[davidpretorius]

From the minute i walked outside, i knew the seeing was looking very good.

no wind and the crisp clear very little sparkle from the sky.

Scope was cooling with the new system, but whilst that was happening, i chucked in 12.5 mm (100x) ep and looked at mars, nice detail!, ok 6.5mm (200x), very nice, ok 12.5mm with a 2.4x barlow (240x), still very clear. 6.5mm with a 2.4x barlow (462), detail was lost, but still the shape was pretty good.

over to the trap and 6 stars. best view i have had of this one!!!

Took some video of little mars and also saturn.

I have not hand picked, just a quick run thru with registax and astra image.

I have done a ME @ 8 x 5 radius i think.

anyway, the images of saturn are getting better. I will hand pick the best out of each r,g,b avi's and then see how that turns out

[asimov]

G'day mate. Was your focus off a wee bit? You still use your electric focuser? What time did you take em'? I dare say you will get a much better result after you have visually picked out the best ones & stacked/processed etc.

Good job! Glad you had a good visual of the traps 6!! I've been trying to capture 6 on the toucam but have'nt succeeded yet. Not sure if the toucams up to that actually without the mod. Need great seeing conditions too I would say..Looking forward to seeing your mars also!

[iceman]

Looking good Dave, getting better each time!

[davidpretorius]

yes i was starting to panic as it was starting to get light at around 4:15am. i put my terminals on back the front on my focusser and blew a diode, so no electonic focusser at the moment!!!

[asimov]

Ooops! Nothing worse than a blown diode @ 4am! Take my advise & knock up a quick radial arm for just such occasions! Not as good as an electric focuser of course! But better than trying to focus using the knobs.

[davidpretorius]

i think i will as a backup. i am mr optimistic that the motors for the dob will work straight away and i can take as long as i like to focus, but if not, at 480x, the slightest touch buggers the fly by! can the radial arm be turned without putting the tube into shudders???

[asimov]

You do get some shuddering, but it's minimal. One has to have a real 'touch' for it. Put it this way, a lot less shudder than trying to focus without it!

Naturally you'd be much better off with your electric one (with it working 100% of the time!:P )

Thinking about it, I think a radial arm on a reflector could be a real pain in the butt! Works ok on a refractor though. :confuse3:

[davidpretorius]

i will still think on it though!

thanks mate!

[asimov]

Piece of cake to make! I just used 2mm ally sheet cut with a jigsaw to whatever shape you want. no weight at all in it to bugger up balance points etc. The clutch would be the hard bit if the focuser knob shaft is not stepped like mine, but theres other ways to make a clutch. Can you unscrew your focuser knobs with ease?.......You have a crayford don't you??

[asimov]

Here's the principle in a nutshell really. As you can see, the main shaft is bigger diameter than the threaded bit, & the arm gets sandwiched in between the focuser knob & that bigger diameter 'shoulder' you see..

(sorry moderators for off topic)

[davidpretorius]

yup crayford and the knobs come out, i obvisouly can't swing the arm thru 360 degreesm but maybe a clutch as you say!

[davidpretorius]

actually im a thinking that the arm could be templated to fit over the knob when i want the fine focus and not there as i am doing coarse 360+ degree turns

[asimov]

Yes...for the arm to clamp to the knob somehow you mean. All I do is loosen the focuser knob slightly & the arm is free. You can 'course' focus thru 360 deg as much as you want & the arm stays put. Once you have pretty good focus I do the focuser knob up locking the arm in position & then fine tune focus using the arm.