Quote:
Originally Posted by alistairsam
hi Jo,
About the horseshoe mount, does it have motor drive and tracking? how are you driving it? I'd be very interested to see that. pics would be great.
if you don't have autoguiding yet, let me know if you're interested in adding it with microcontrollers and quadrature encoders from wheels found in deskjet printers.
I built a wooden forkmount with steppers and finally added ST4 autoguiding in RA but haven't tested it out fully, happy to share plans and ideas..
Cheers
Alistair
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Yes the mount is driven (using roller drives) with a modified dual axis stepper motor drive upgrade kit for the old synta EQ mounts, I have added an ST4 port the the hand piece for guiding but haven't tried it yet.
It has been out of action for a few months but I will be giving it some upgrades ready for the new scope. I will certainly post some pics.
Your mount sounds sounds great! I would love to see it and find out how you’ve made it. Swapping ideas and plans sound good
.
An update on the scope progress, I got some aluminium plate, 160x250x6mm (flat pack focuser
) and have cut out some bits, I’m planing on building something similar to the focuser on my refractor, but I guess we’ll see.
Adding up how much the scope has cost so far:
$22 Aluminium
$16 MDF
$49 70mm Secondary mirror
Total: $87
Not to bad, should finish it off under a hundred I hope, (already have a dodgy primary mirror)
Cheers
Jo