10 inch travelscope

[scopemankit (Chris)]

I have just finished this light, collapsible telescope. It weighs 9.5kg (mirror included). The strut is fibeglass as is the spider/light shield. It has a gooseneck, which means that you do not view from the side but from 45 degrees. This overcomes the problems of the Litescope at low angles. The triangles and the trunnion are made out laminated, hard merante, veneers. The azimuth bearings are 2X ball races and one teflon bearing. I found that three teflon bearings tended to stick a bit when conditions are dewy.

further pics are available at ; http://www.flickr.com/photos/38295849@N04/

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Ingenious design Chris.

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Thanks jjj

[hickny (Peter)]

That's amazing. Very clever. How do you collimate it? How do you manage to reduce light interference or is the sky dark in your location?

[GrahamL]

Very clever chris .. So your spider is the light baffle for your secondary and focuser?

[tnott]

Excellent work chris!

The goose neck will certainly save your own neck when viewing!

Does the pole screw apart for transport and is that a bungee cord used as a virtual counterweight?

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Thanks all.

Collimation is by the three screws above the diagonal and three bolts holding the primary cell.

The pole breaks int two it a sliding fit with a locator stud

The spider serves as light baffle (slightly curved) and there are not many diffraction spikes.

The goose neck is a great improvement on the original Litescope. Necks are left unkricked!

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Originally Posted by tnott

Excellent work chris!

The goose neck will certainly save your own neck when viewing!

Does the pole screw apart for transport and is that a bungee cord used as a virtual counterweight?

The bungee cord is a virtual counterweight. ( If irst did a virtual counterbalance in the late 90's)

If you go to the site you get a better view of it. I shall send another set of pics, of the scope broken down for carrying in a back pack, next week .

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Now that is a very slick project.

[dannat (Daniel)]

looks fantastic

[spacezebra (Petra)]

Hi Chris, thanks for the post.

A very streamlined design - impressive!

Cheers Petra d.

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Just don't even say "dew" in Chris' presence

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Wild bit of gear ... very neat to.

[alistairsam]

Hi Chris,

Thats very innovative. Love the concept.
had a few questions.
I'm trying to understand why you went with the trunion on one side and the single ball bearing at the other ?
one option that comes to mind is having a triangle perpendicular to the alzimuth triangle, and a bearing at its apex in line to the bearing on the other side where the pole terminates. you could then adjust stiffness using the shafts.

I noticed a bungee cord as well. what does this do? is this fibre glass tube readily available?


thanks.

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Alistair,

The 1 trunnion gives stiction and the ball bearing is almost frictionless.
The bungee is a virtual counterweight.
I made the fiberglass tube by 1) getting 50mm aluminium tube.
2) wrapping it in kitchen greaseproof paper
3) winding fiberglass on and applying resin
4) when dry, pull out tube and g/p paper

[gts055 (Mark)]

Looks great, and with a minimum number of parts Was it difficult to extract the aluminium tube former from the cured fiberglass tube?
Mark

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

Excellent.

How long does it take to set up / tear down???

Cheers,

Brian.

[scopemankit (Chris)]

The aluminium tube came out easily due to the wax wrap between it and the fiberglass.

To carry in a car, partially disassebled, takes less than 5 minutes to get observing.

Fully diassembles takes 15 minutes to get together.

Picture shows all pices (mirror still in it's box)

To look at construction (sorry they are a bit out of sequence) visit the address below:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3825849@N04/