My future observatorys' new equatorial wedge

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

This neat unit was made by Zane (Astroboy) for mounting his ex (now my) 12" LX200GPS under the roll-off roof portion of his Magellan Observatory. It came with the scope, but only today did we have enough room in the car to bring it back home on our trip from Omaroo home. It has a switch bank that will be used to control scope power, an invertor, the heater and one other - which will probably be a redlight.

His and our global positions are about 1.5 degrees removed in latitude, so I'll need top adjust the rake of the wedge a little - JOOI, can anyone tell me by how much???

It will be used in our future roll-down roof observatory (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...of+observatory) which we'll build in our back yard until we move one day to Cooma for good.

So... after just purchasing the SCT and getting into photography with it, my learning curve is now so vertical I'm seeing stars just walking along... Now I've also got to get into polar alignment!

I've still got my eyes on H0ughy's tripod-mounted wedge for field work - because I can't imagine that once I start to get in to polar alignment I'll go back and forth to alt-az.....

[Ric]

That is an excellent looking setup.
Ah yes, polar alignment, I see that you have now turned to the dark side.

I'm still saving for my wedge, won't be long now I hope.

cheers

[JohnG (John)]

Hi Chris

Looks like you have plenty of latitude adjustment available on that wedge, you will be able to adjust the front and back levelling screws to you get the correct latitude for either Sydney or Cooma, from memory there is not that much difference there, couple of degrees I think.

If all else fails, you could get longer threads on the adjusters. Depending on what type of photography you have in mind, you will need to get real close to the pole.

Cheers

JohnG