Electronic Focuser

[Shaun]

I am in the process of setting up a tv monitor to use with the gstar, now i will have a telescope i can control from pc a camera i can control from pc but manual focus, am i able to make an electronic focusor or do i have to spend more money to buy one, and what one would you say will work with my Nexstar 80GTL.

[hikerbob (Bob)]

Shaun I'm part way through building a motorised focuser for my Nexstar 80GTL. I've not done the mechanics part yet, I'm thinking of turning up a pully to replace one of the focusser knobs and driving that via a small pully from a stepper motor.

So far I've built a small stepper motor controller (a Jaycar kit) which I've modified to include a handcontroller with speed control and a momentary switch for each direction.

[Shaun]

Thats sounds ok, let me know how you go i might give it a try myself, i have to try and keep the weight down as i am not sure of how the mount will handle camera and electrinoc focuser.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Not sure how much it ends up costing buying the stepper motor and other bits but I reckon the orion accufocus is pretty hard to beat if you can adapt it to your scope. I've got one on my Newt and it works well. I also lashed out and got the shoestring FCUSB to get finer control from the lappy.