Hi Geoff, i've just seen the pictures of ur new telescope. Wow, thats a beautiful looking thing. And with that mirror u will have exceptional performance when the seeing allows. Congratulations on ur new purchase, and wish u a great night for ur first views.
Mark H
Pity you did not get the servocat Geoff. Some suggest that having tracking allows the brain to focus more on the detail and less on the movement. This in effect means about 1-2" of aperture difference.
I really love the servocat and would not be without it.
Enjoy your SDM, they really are lovely pieces of furniture.
Welcome to the SDM family, Geoff! You have many wonderful months (and years) of pleasure ahead of you. She looks absolutely gorgeous!
Regarding Servocat, I don't have it either. Sure, it would be nice sometimes to have tracking, but my SDM scope is such a joy to handle that I actually enjoy manually pushing the scope to keep up with the object, and the motion of the scope is so smooth that it is no effort at all. Any slight vibrations from moving the scope settle almost instantaneously after it is pushed, so observing at 360x or more is fine. At lower powers, of course, the object stays in the FOV long enough to get a nice long view without moving it at all.
I had Peter pre-drill my scope ready for servo-cat in the coming years. I figured at this stage I would rather the $$ for eyepices. That is a real factor given that servo-cat is $2,500!
Another welcome to the family from me! I'm sure you will enjoy the full moon tomorrow.
It is difficult to describe just how well these scopes perform - I could hand track my 20" with ease at 500x. When I had Servocat retro-fitted it got better and better.
Geoff, as far as I am aware, Peter has personally delivered every scope he has ever made, even travelling over 2 states (Vic-> NSW-> QLD) and back again in some instances, at no cost. Mindblowing, I know, but true.
Well Peter didn't even deliver me a scope, but he did manage to stay at my house for 5 days from Xmas to New year, drink just about every drop of Chardonnay I own and tip some of my best Port down his throat. All this without even getting my cigars out, a lot of of my assistance and even more argument from my wife. Something to do with, "you've had enough boys"
May I add Geoff, that some of my intuitively brilliant ideas regarding telescope design and construction, are now incorporated into yours' and Rod's telescopes. At least two I believe It's amazing the brilliant ideas one has at the back end of a bottle of port
I will add that when we met up again at Coonabarabran in March, he reciprocated on the shout and produced a fine bottle of port from the back end of his trailer
Peter builds a superb telescope. You will get many many years of enjoyment from it, as will Rod. Enjoy them fellas.
Geoff, I see from the SDM website photos that you have the locking mechanism to enable you to safely move the scope while set-up. That is a great feature, which Peter retro-fitted to my scope. It has saved me 30+ minutes every session in set-up and pack up time. It is great because you can have it permanently set up, except when taking it to a dark sky location.
Pity you did not get the servocat Geoff. Some suggest that having tracking allows the brain to focus more on the detail and less on the movement. This in effect means about 1-2" of aperture difference.
I really love the servocat and would not be without it.
Hi Paul, its been a long time since we have 'spoken' to each other.
There's a few reasons why I didn't go for the servocat option. Firstly there's a few grand in it, and I would need to see a scope fitted with it to see for myself how good it is and whether its worth it for me. Secondly, I wanted to keep things simple and easy to set up and pack away. I figured the servocat would add a level of complexity to that and detract from the portability aspect. Thirdly, if I decide later that I really want it, I figure I could get it retrofitted easily enough given that I'm getting the powered ground board.
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Geoff, I see from the SDM website photos that you have the locking mechanism to enable you to safely move the scope while set-up. That is a great feature, which Peter retro-fitted to my scope. It has saved me 30+ minutes every session in set-up and pack up time.
Yes Rod, when Peter described the mirror box locks I thought that was a great idea which I had to have.
Theres another very innovative idea Peter (or is it John B ) has come up with. Every truss dob I have seen that has transport 'wheelbarrow' type handles have them as a one piece deal which need to be bolted onto the rocker box for moving the scope, and removed for viewing lest anyone step on or trip over the protruding handles.
Peter has come up with a two part transport handle. One part (with the wheels attached) can stay fitted to the rocker box, and the lifting handles simply slide into the first part when you want to move the scope. Brilliant!
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Thank you
