Quote:
Originally Posted by Hodur
One of the things that comes to mind are the Harmonic Drive mounts and the exotic OTA Riccardi-Honders astrograph available from Testar.
Also the story’s I love reading, average guy, average gear, achieving great results.
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I guess I was being obtuse, but I'm pretty sure Klass Honders designed his astrograph back in the late 1970's/early 1980's and while there have been some excellent variations on his and other designs, much of this stuff has been around (albeit often not in amateur telescopes) for decades.
High precision optical shaft encoders have allowed things like harmonic drives, but in reality, how you spin a shaft is somewhat moot so long as it is accurate, smooth and rigid. This is not to say portability and weight savings of these drives are not useful...but they do throw the occasional curve ball if they lose power by going limp, or vibrating if not perfectly tuned when powered.
It is also worth mentioning if you put a renishaw or similar encoder into a standard mount drive you get the best of both worlds.....albeit at a price.
I guess the point I am making is changes in optics and mounts being offered to amateurs are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, with many high quality but older "classical" designs outperforming the latest marketing pitches.
