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Old 15-11-2011, 10:16 AM
clive milne
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clive milne is offline
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Freo WA
Posts: 1,443
fwiw) I'm not sure if this is in your budget or not, but Dan Gray has been developing a direct drive telescope system.
The advantage is that you do not need any gears whatsoever, so the mechanics are as simple as it gets.
I suggested to him a while back to try and see if fisher and paykel washing machine motors work... and they do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-bVYbQwEUg

The downside is that the shaft encoders required will cost you one of your internal organs, but in return you get zero backlash
(because there is no gear train) perfect pointing accuracy and sub-arc second tracking (zero periodic error)
It is not surprising that this is the preferred drive system for modern professional observatory telescopes.

This can be applied very easily to a split ring equatorial made out of plywood or a simple Alt-Az with field de-rotation.
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