Nice setup there Houghy, this must be the project you were working on.
Look forward to seeing some images.
regards,CS
Yes it is Rob, after or should I say during Qld Astrofest it dawned on me that I needed a equatorial mount that works and is very stable. The meade wedge actually bounces and is a complete pain to set up and i cannot even get to the horizion with it very well if needed. So I thought ai would rationalise it a bit, a smaller scope to use visually and as a guide scope, and somewhere to mount my camera (as well as on the guide scope). I came up with this. It is very "portable', just bring your own forklift . the Eq6 is heavy, very heavy, but is able to be moved better than the 12" LX200.
Well today wasn't the best of days weather wise, so I decided to do a make do construction for the EQ6.
I found a bit of aluminium tubing (scrap) , found a few bolts in the shed and a heap of washers. Did a bit of precision drilling with the help of my 4 year old son and marking out with my 8 year old daughter. I attached the little bit of the bar I had to the aluminium tube. So anyway here is the finished product .
It is sort of along the lines I was wanting, a great place to start from to get to what I want. Mick P please turn away now , I know its rough but I needed to work out what i want to achieve. I don't know how I will get the two optical system parallel. or even if they have to be exactly aligned?
I intend to guide with the Intes scope, one day I might get a ST4 or STV to autoguide with (no laptop).
Hey nice work there mate, one question why is the bar longish?
Good question Stuart, i don't know. I didn't cut the bar because I wanted to be greedy, i wanted to put in another scope in the middle, maybe larger like a 8" or a 80mm ED or something similar, possibly even another PST.
Good ony h0ughy. How's the balance? I find trying to balance in three directions a bit tricky at times. Ie foreward and aft, left to right and top to bottom.
Good ony h0ughy. How's the balance? I find trying to balance in three directions a bit tricky at times. Ie foreward and aft, left to right and top to bottom.
believe it or not it does balance both sides and the opposite direction. when i take the camera body of it doesn't yes yaw, pitch and roll seem to be OK
i thought that you could attach to the bases of scopes and camera bases and then turn eq to 0 degrees and then make sure all three little spirit levels are the same. then turn eq to 90 degrees and then check again. off the top of my head i am hoping that that will simplify allignent of all three scopes / cameras???
someone shoot me if i have taken the same tablets and am leading houghy up the garden path. but i think it will work?
Nice Mak, let me know how you go on the imaging of planets with this scope. f10 and bound to be sharp as a tack. This is one option I have considered if and when I replace the lx200. Only purely on the basis of its planetary capacity. Gary tells me they are great for planets and I trust his judgement in this. Would like a 13" though, that would rock.
I like the idea of the EQ6 as well. This is giving me ideas again. Sorry Rod. Maybe I could get a Mak and EQ6 as a secondary and purely planetary imaging scope.
Really cool looking setup H0ughy, glad you posted the images. Good man.
Nice Mak, let me know how you go on the imaging of planets with this scope. f10 and bound to be sharp as a tack. This is one option I have considered if and when I replace the lx200. Only purely on the basis of its planetary capacity. Gary tells me they are great for planets and I trust his judgement in this. Would like a 13" though, that would rock.
I like the idea of the EQ6 as well. This is giving me ideas again. Sorry Rod. Maybe I could get a Mak and EQ6 as a secondary and purely planetary imaging scope.
Really cool looking setup H0ughy, glad you posted the images. Good man.
Thanks Paul, I was trying to cover all bases, and with a 6.3 focal reducer should help with a wider field of view thorugh the scope if I want later. the threaded back makes it easy for me to use all of the sct stuff I already have
It is sort of along the lines I was wanting, a great place to start from to get to what I want. Mick P please turn away now , I know its rough but I needed to work out what i want to achieve. I don't know how I will get the two optical system parallel. or even if they have to be exactly aligned?
No - only if you want them to be. I actually manufacture a dualmount system (I'm safe saying that here 'cos there's no way you lot on Oz are going to want one ) with a dovetail for the Synta/GP type dovetail system. However, it became apparent at the design stage that if I just made a copy of the dovetail clamp system then this alignment you are after would not work.
To get around this and allow alignment I use the clamp system on the enc. pic (please, nobody tell anyone about this... it's my living ) and as you can see I do not machine the 15 degree dovetail, rather just a straight slot. The M6 hole is the standard star-spinner bolt to initially hold the bar in place while the four M4 bolts are for fine lateral adjustment and main clamping/locking of the bar. Two of these are then bolted on an aluminium dovetail 330mm long, one at each end. I am assuming though that your dovetail has the adjusting bolts at each end to raise the rings.
Arthur
Last edited by Ambermile; 25-10-2005 at 10:33 PM.
Reason: Added mount pic
No - only if you want them to be. I actually manufacture a dualmount system (I'm safe saying that here 'cos there's no way you lot on Oz are going to want one ) with a dovetail for the Synta/GP type dovetail system. However, it became apparent at the design stage that if I just made a copy of the dovetail clamp system then this alignment you are after would not work.
To get around this and allow alignment I use the clamp system on the enc. pic (please, nobody tell anyone about this... it's my living ) and as you can see I do not machine the 15 degree dovetail, rather just a straight slot. The M6 hole is the standard star-spinner bolt to initially hold the bar in place while the four M4 bolts are for fine lateral adjustment and main clamping/locking of the bar. Two of these are then bolted on an aluminium dovetail 330mm long, one at each end. I am assuming though that your dovetail has the adjusting bolts at each end to raise the rings.
Arthur
Thanks Aurthur,
one question though, I don't have or use tube rings? your mount does allow for lateral adjustment, do you do something to allow for vertical? Or is that what the tube rings do?
one question though, I don't have or use tube rings? your mount does allow for lateral adjustment, do you do something to allow for vertical? Or is that what the tube rings do?
Well, I've found that those scopes that do not use rings are usually pretty level wrt the dec axis - it's actually the use of rings that makes their adjustment necessary. Go figure!