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Dave, nearly forgot one of your questions.
The whole project took one year to plan and four months to build working pretty much one day on weekends. Odessius is nothing like my first idea. I designed it to follow all the principles of what makes a dobsonian mount work, and the stiffness requirements of a good OTA. The poles are 50mm, and are held in place first from the over engineered mirror box and with very strong clamps. Without good clamps the design wouldn't work. The secondary cage looks flimsy, but once its clamps are actuated it is rock solid. Once collimated, I can focus on something at zenith, drop it to something on the horizon and nothing shifts.
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