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Morning Rolf, Alex,
3 Degree and ice on my windscreen this morning. They were touting there would be snow last night up your way Rolf. Used a lot of firewood last night keeping the house warm.
I've used some very simple engineering solutions Alex. Crushed tubes rather than fancy expensive connections, heaps of small nuts and bolts and rivets. Bunnings is my best friend at present ( or I am theirs more likely !!) It's more a matter of being accurate with your workmanship so it all fits without stressing joints. So far so good. Remember, Rolf's instrument is the model and epitome of magnificence, mine is but a cheap copy. Helps that I am a bit of a 'McGyvor' engineer from way back.
I think I really need to lug the EQ6 downstairs to the workshop now, do a fit up. It's been sitting in the lounge with the 114 Newt & the 80mm Achro as I've been getting familiar with guidecams and the GPUSB system.
Balance is slightly top heavy at present as expected with no mirror loaded and I'll do a weight check tonight but I am expecting about 7-8 kg in it's current form. Temperature permitting of course !!
I'll add some height to my DOB swivel base and get some bearings to fit to the cage. That will make it useable pretty quickly till 'SkySlab' is built. I have plenty of small computer type fans to sort any temperature issues. Light shrouding is my next big challenge.
Picked up a GSO 2" 32mm Kellner from the Scope bits sale at the Observatory on Sunday. It's at the very top edge of the 10" useabilty but I wanted a 2" to see what difference it would make to viewing and the price was ok for an experiment. I was trying to find a cheap 6" mirror to design a airline friendly travel scope around but no luck. Grabbed a couple of Filters as well, yellow, blue for some planetary viewing.
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