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Thanks Ryan,
My prime concern was whether I could achieve focus and then whether the rig would fit ok into the NexDome and have sufficient clearance when maxed out in Ra and Dec as the tube is 1200mm long.All of the above worked perfectly and there’s still plenty of room to walk around and sit at my workstation ( I’m not in there long only to set up a nights imaging then I remote control it from inside the house in the study ) The rig does look cool in black rather than all white like my previous 8” rig and this helps with all those little led red and green pilot lights on equipment everywhere ( Less reflection)
As these Carbon fibre tubes are so damn light and the primary mirror is a ship anchor , I had to add weight to the front end as the tube would have been pushed all he way forward almost near the shell of the Dome, plus Dec balance would have near impossible, and in Ra the end of the scope would have hit the wall.So I bought a roll of pre painted 2.5mm lead flashing from Bunnings and wrapped it tight around the front of the OTA just behind the focuser and secured it with black cloth duct tape and Velcro strap. It added 3kg to the front and allow me to centre the OTA over the saddle ( only a 150mm offset now which worked perfect ) This counter weight matches the rig , it looks like a dew heater
Next mission is to get my guiding tighter which isn’t easy on the EQ8-R mounts , they do have backlash issues which I knew about.I’m going to start of with better balance and see how we go on a stable night. If I can get down to 0.50 I’ll be stoked. I don’t PEC train with EQMOD as it affects dithering in PHD2 so worse case is to adjust the worms which will be a last resort.
Cheers
Martin
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