Waiting on a few bits and pieces to get it all happening - had some visual nights from backyard in brisbane and it was pretty impressive. The 11" makes a huge difference.
Tim (Brisbane)
My long focal length imaging rig: GSO RC10 on an Astro-Physics AP900 mount. Atlas focuser and Starlight Xpress gear: AO-LF, filter wheel, Lodestar autoguider and H-18 camera.
I took it for a first trip away from home this weekend and it performed very well.
Here is my 150mm f8 thats in storage in NZ , its fitted with a Chromocor and has lead fishing sinkers glued into the focuser to balance the tube in the rings better , oh yes it has the crayford focuser that came off my ED80 after I fitted a GSO 10 to 1 .
Same as yours there Matt .
These are great scopes .
Brian.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattT
Hers my favourite scope, the sky is blue today ...amazing. Matt
Very very nice Brian! Chromocor too...even better. I'm waiting for Istar to come out with the Raycorr (spelling?) but terrific scopes yes. Did think of lead weights at the focuser end too, but thought the 4" f5 looked way better
Matt
Hi PGC, that steel dobbo mount is differant , did you make it yourself ? and how sturdy is it ?
I like the idea . .
Thanks .
Brian.
I didn't make it myself I think it's a homemade job by the previous owner. Works well and is perfectly adequate although at very high power you begin to notice a bit of flex and vibration. Might upgrade it down the track (the OTA has ridiculous optics and so I'm not going to shy away from throwing money at it) but for the time being it is a nice, light weight unit.
This is the latest addition to the family, I got to spend a good couple of hours with it today. It was very therapeutic.
A big thanks goes out to Ken(Merlin66) without whom I wouldn't have this set up and I would still be trying to get the gold tube of the PST off.
Yesterday morning I paid Ken a visit and we set about separating the gold tube as he had the right tools for the job so I could add it to the 90mm Meade when I got home. It was good to learn a bit more about my PST too, the prism was in good enough shape and the blocking filter seems to be a decent one and now I know what to do if I need to adjust the etalon but I doubt I do although the o-rings need replacing.
After having a bit of a annoying time with the goto system on my XT14g, I decided to ditch the synscan controls and turn the scope into a push-to with the possibility of adding a ServoCat system later on.
This involved some talks with Gary at Wildcard about fitting an ArgoNavis and after half a day of mucking about with pulling the mount apart and then a week of Gary making some encoder adaptors. I then became one of the AN elite
I found that whilst pushing the scope in Azimuth was fine, the Altitude movement was a bit stiff so I used the old motor on the Alt axis to drive the scope in fine steps (by making a very basic variable voltage controller).
As I use SkySafari for most of my charting requirements I had to find some way of fitting all these nice goodies to my scope. These images are what I've ended up with so far. I still have to tidy up the wiring and if the motor controller is not fine enough then I'll look at some sort of PWM drive for now until I decide to go the ServoCat.
This is my current setup. It is giving me headache without a fixed observatory. I is a C14 with, an Atlas FLI focuser, Apogee 7 places 50mm filter wheel, Astrodon GenII HA,SII,OIII,L,R,G,B filters and finally an Apogee U9000 camera. The guide setup is a StarlightXpress Superstar with a Celestron 80mm Guidescope. I did a 3 wheels wooden base to move the whole system until my fixed observatory is not ready.
me rig!
now i know why there is so much angst over cable management
i am ecstatic at what can be achieved with what i have got right in the middle of perth
pat
MMM LV25 , feeing out of place there Flash ? a square peg ? , 
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Here is my 150mm f8 thats in storage in NZ , its fitted with a Chromocor and has lead fishing sinkers glued into the focuser to balance the tube in the rings better , oh yes it has the crayford focuser that came off my ED80 after I fitted a GSO 10 to 1 .
Hi PGC, that steel dobbo mount is differant , did you make it yourself ? and how sturdy is it ? 
