Ian, I am not sure of the final weight.. I was keeping an eye on it but got lazy and gave up trying to save weight. What ever it is, it's well below the paramounts capacity..
Got the pieces from the powder coaters today, the finish is very nice. I wont assemble the whole scope until I have finished off the trusses, i.e. properly attached the connectors to them.
The counterweights are not in the photo but they came out pretty nice as well. I would buy them!
Fred - 0.2" away from BFD is horrible, Now, I'll PM you the address of my house (err.. I mean, "The bin") and you can post the lot straight to "The Bin" haha
Dude - Looks VERY cool! Sigh... Im such a gear junkie!! I look at that and dribble a bit... haha... Now, stop playing with it.. Point it at M78 and make me a pretty picture Fred!
Yep, thats a lot of stuff hanging of the back there!
With any luck I will get my scope on the mount this weekend. My wife has been working late so I haven't had any time to work on it. With a long weekend in NZ I just might get enough time to finish things off!
Soooo close now I can taste it I finished the last couple of things and was going to put in the mirrors but I lost the silicone for mounting the secondary!
Too bad, it went on the mount I put the FSQ on top so I could at least have a look at something tonight. My son had a picture with it but he didn't seem too enthusiastic about it all. Probably because I just told him to stop turning the dome, his favorite past time..
Jason, I completely agree.. no RC looks the goods until the there is an FSQ-106 riding on top.. And not only does the FSQ look the goods, but I'm pretty sure you'll need it for wide fields.. the RC sure as hell isn't going to allow for wide field action!
This might be a good reason for a secondary focuser
the cam-filterwheel-MOAG-AO8-rotator and adaptor hell, took up 8.2" of back focus, no spacers, and the optimum BFD is 8.0", so im over already.
If I had to add a prime focuser, id be stuffed.
I havent got it all working yet, I got the rotator-MOAG-adaptor farm today, it just cant be that easy can it, oh no .
Im posting a pic now, because if being 0.2" away from the BFD is no good, the whole lot goes in the bin .
Hi Fred,
I know RCs have an optimum mirror spacing but I doubt it is that sensitive.
For one thing they universally employ a secondary focuser which changes that distance quite a bit.
Hard to say for sure as I didn't image on my 12.5 without using the secondary focuser but a lot my images looked the same as others
using 12.5 inch RCs. It didn't seem that critical certainly not .2 of an inch.
Thanks Greg. I shaved .2" off an adaptor to make sure. I also focused in the past over a wide range, both with secondary and prime focusers, and without actually analysing it, everything looked OK.
Painted it looks even better Jason, and the white FSQ is a nice contrast. I must say, it looks sleeker and "cleaner" than an RCOS.
Ive always dreamed of handcrafting from scatch myself to this quality, but everything I attempt never quite looks the real deal, and never actually works as intended. I envy your talent and attention to detail.
Paul, The weather in auckland doesn't look like it will be clear until after the weekend so I am playing around with another addition..
I glued the secondary on yesterday and I will let it sit until about sunday before I attach it back on to the scope.
Right now I am sizing up a light shroud for the bottom half, like the RCOS have. I was not sure how much I might benefit from one in the dome.
On the one hand I will stop light coming in the side and on to the mirror, on the other I may catch light coming from the forward angles that would have gone out the side and bounce it on to the mirror that way. I don't have any flocking material so its just a matt black paint.
It does look good and will help me keep dust off though
I made a light shroud from the .8mm acrylic I had. It looks ok but I realised after putting the primary baffle in that it wont be possible to do any adjustments with the shroud in place.
Not the end of the world, I will just have to get it lined up before installing the shroud - it only becomes an issue if I want to tinker with it once its on the mount..
.
haha
