homemade telescope focuser

In addition, we use third-party cookies to help us analyze and understand usage. I wanted the long focal length for good contrast. Make the hole diameter fairly snug, too. I used one of these scrap pieces to draw an angle of 70 degrees to the edge of the arc so that I could later place the teflon pads on the arcs. A neet site: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/CAMERAS.HTM Cool instructable, Dude! I marked the expected position of the secondary by measuring 61 inches down from the end of the tube. on Step 1, interesting build, its just like my old Odyssey brand scope from the mid 1990's. that is a great website that guy has some fantastic photos. But who cares, really? I used the "LEDandBuzzer" and "TestStepsDRV8825" tests. Both cameras have fairly small megapixels by todays' standards, and are certainly obsolete, but do the job extremely well! The bigger upvc nut will be attached to focuser plate and longer threaded side will be used on it for the focusing. Step 4Attaching the Side Bearings and assembling the Rocker. Another vote for Pierre's helical Crayford design. With adapters for any Meade 1x200-ACF or LS model, and chord to plug into focuser port. tube and nut that fits the outside threads. The curved sides of the Side Bearings are also covered with strips of Ebony Star that glide on the teflon pads on the curved edges of the Rocker Sides (figure 3). Helicals are adaptable to both refractors and reflectors, but do not "play nice" with zoom eyepieces because "zooming" becomes a two handed operation to avoid changing focus. Use mild soap and distilled . I made a similar helical focuser with a nice 2 inch thing I found in Classifieds. experimented with various wires and rods and eventually decided that a Once I had my design set, I was ready to buy the parts. I only use the OTA. (A badly tilted focuser may subtly alter the illumination pattern of the focal plane to a degree that would be impossible to perceive visually but that's about it.) I call shenanigans on every picture in this post except for the the moon. All Dobsonian telescope projects are unique buildshere are the notes from my latest version to help get you familiar with the process and determine how youll design yours. my 12.5" trackball, but I didn't Featured in the February, 2015 issue of Sky & I also figured that the extra expense was worth it, considering the amount of money I was investing in the project overall. I don't have the skills to build a focuser using a. The hole is made slightly larger than the shaft, this is normal. The only thing on the list that was a bit difficult to find was baltic birch plywood, which had to be special ordered from the lumber yard. The one company that did provide a price quoted over $500more than I was willing to pay for cardboard! installations. I tried all of my other eyepieces and found that I could bring the image into focus in the other eyepieces, but it was very near the bottom of the focuser travel. Here is a link to the main FILES area on Robert Brown's site. Along with some silver bits That evening I spent most of my time rediscovering the many DSOs around Sagittarius, especially the Lagoon Nebula and the Trifid Nebula. While round tubing is sturdy, square tubing is easier to work with. In order to check your measurements, you can construct jigs for your mirror cell and secondary cage, positioning them on a straight, adjustable track such as 2 planks of wood. 5 weeks after I had ordered the mirror, I called to ask about its status. I had designed the tube box so that there would be an extra inch around the tube. Perfect for astrophotography or during high power planetary observation. Fire up focusmax, and shoot some images! 100A81BF-2145-44D5-BC76-66DBF43BAD58.jpeg. I Hope to give you ideas if you are thinking about building one for yourself! During on-site assembly, attach each truss to its mounting T-nut using a bolt with a thumbscrew knob. This combination has proved to be effective for all positions except when the tube is pointed directly up. To place the primary mirror, I installed the secondary and installed the primary in the mirror cell. knob, and a drill press to make sure the hole for the knitting needle 10 years ago on Introduction. "https://ssl." Inside the OTA is a ring of tightly fitting flocking paper that prevents any light getting in around the drawtube. flexing. A Pocket Sundial From a Broken Pocket Watch! This motor is available on Amazon. Edited by sunrag, 28 May 2020 - 10:44 PM. If you want a Crayford focuser with a knob instead of turning the draw tube, then Jerry Oltion's designhttp://www.jerryoltixycrayfords.htm using box frames and knitting needle drive shafts is also a fairly easy build. 7 years ago In scaling up the K/B 8 inch design, I made a few changes that, I hope, will improve the design for 12.5 inch aperture. I gave them a call and they said they had one on the shelf14 inches in diameter and 12 feet long! A celebration of the Maker Movement, a family-friendly showcase of invention and creativity that gathers Thanks Bob. See captioned photos 22-25 here:https://www.cloudyniractor-focuser/ for more detail on building a flush valve focuser, as Bob mentions. Connect the Arduino USB cable and upload some test sketches. I didn't bother reading his whole article to figure out what f/# he used) I am not trying to say that good AP isn't possible with a sonotube scope, (the 'friend' may very well have pulled it out of the dob mount, added rings and a dovetail, and mounted it on his CGE-Pro or comparable) but in this case it is unlikely.". His passion is using CAD design and his homemade CNC router to bring large wood projects to life. Maker-written books designed to inform and delight! Here are a few photos of the "bracket", which is a simple 3D printed plate that mounts to the telescope's focuser ring, and serves as a mount for the stepper motor. You will need to remove the regular focus knob on your telescope's focuser. It was easy enough to drill a hole and tap threads for a how much travel you actually need, you can cut the tube off so none of the bearings right at the edge of the frame, reducing the frame to Just to make sure I liked the stain, I applied some to a piece of scrap wood. Two inch internal diameter drawtube. the drive shaft close against the drawtube. It take automatic control of the CCD camera and focuser, and dances around magically on the screen, arriving at perfect focus within about 30s to 3 minutes depending on where you started from. Fast forward a few months to the next time I had the tube outside. once. I could not find a spacer to fit my 9/16 hole, so I bought the 11/16 spacer (1 1/8 long because that's what the store had) and a bit of the same size. Another thing, the resolution on the Dumbell nebula seems a bit too high for that telescope. A free program that lights childrens creative fires and allows them to explore projects in areas such as arts & The last chapter of the book describes a plan for an 8 inch sonotube dob with a few design elements from their truss design, and, as I read that chapter, the simplicity of its construction was very appealing. Electronics and software automate the process of taking pictures. Two of the holes for the bolts were blocked by knobs. I told them to take their time and get it right. After another 3 weeks, I was concerned that I had not received the mirror. Since my plan called for purchasing the mirrors and mechanical parts there were several decisions to be made and several vendors to contact. 11 years ago both sides. I got no response to phone calls or emails after another week, and decided to wait until the primary would be finished in another two weeks. I built a second set of electronics, and I had the NEMA 17 Direct Drive motor left over since it didn't work for my Orion ED80T-CF refractor. Thank you for your pages. I also decided to make a separate mounting plate for the stepper motor, since I figured aligning the shafts precisely would be all but impossible. Fairly easy to build and could be adapted to suit any SCT focuser. I have no idea how much mail this idea will generate, so I can't Finally it was etched in caustic soda, and anodised matt black. His project is very well documented. You can easily, and economically (10$) build a Crayford Helical Focuser like the one pictured above in one evening with simple tools. help eliminate slippage when the focuser is pointed straight upward. . The hole did need to be enlarged slightly by moving the bit within the hole , but in the end, the fit seems right. You really need a step ladder even for my 10" when pointed overhead. Thanks for the great comment. Not sure if it is available in the USA. The next day, I centered the rocker on the rocker bottom (which had been cut using the same method as the side bearing circles), drawing perpendicular lines through the center of the rocker bottom to use as a guide, and tracing the position on the rocker bottom. I started by trying to drill out a metal gear for the focuser shaft. The next day, I called back to ask their opinion about the kind of spider and secondary holder to order. The sides were attached with wood glue and clamps with a few small brads to hold everything in place. If you're not using heavy eyepieces, you probably don't need When they arrived, they were beautifully and carefully packaged with the secondary already installed in its holder. ill ask him for a detailed list of what he used and when i get that ill post it here for you. The back of the mirror floats on 3 or more support points (this build uses 6) that are calculated usinga software tool called PLOP. Start with the small components first. This makes for better sky photographs as the exposure time can be lengthened,. the tube is cardboard as well, you can also get a quality mirror at telescope.com for much cheaper. Some quick tips to note if you are making a homemade telescope are: 1. on Introduction. Newton, and others including James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain, believed that a reflecting telescope would not be affected by the chromatic aberration that affected . If your optical train is heavy and the focuser has to bear it (see above) then this motor may be a better choice. an inch or so apart, so the focuser body could be pretty low profile. I laughed, packed up the cell with a long letter describing the series of events that led to the return, and put it in the mail. I added three inches for a margin of error and in case I need to rebalance the tube in the future, making a distance of 25 inches from the balance point of the tube to the rocker bottom. Plan ahead by carefully weighing all components and approximating the center mass of the optical assembly. The plastic will ride on teflon pads, creating just enough traction for the telescope to avoid sliding on its own while not making it too difficult to point at things in the sky. I think I got what I wanted and seems best solution for me. A week after they said they would send the secondary and other parts, I called to ask if things had been sent. If you look in the FILES area on Robert Brown's site (see link above) you will see a sub-folder "3D Printed Parts". Drill a hole and attach the ball head using a shorter 1/4" 20 bolt. really stiff and light for their size, and even though a #2 is pretty on Introduction, Very nice build nikon20. All in all it seemed like a pretty robust design, so I gave it I decided to use baltic birch because it is recommended by Kriege and Berry as well as many online sources. Be creative! Crayford-style design with four bearings and one driveshaft. Most people will want a knob on I really had to, since the underside of my telescope's focuser is all curves, no flat area for attaching the mounting bracket. This scope was originally made as a travel scope using an eight inch mirror that I ground and polished at the St Pete Astronomy Clubs Mirror Lab. And you can tell it's not a mosaic because the stars at the corners show coma/field curvature artifacts. It's easy to shim it to The diameter of the focuser is usually indicated in inches. I suppose that one could complete this project without these two tools, but it would be difficult to cut the pieces accurately enough for a good fit. I used my router to "mill" a flat area for better contact with the focus adjustment rod. needle so the knitting needle will be snug against the drawtube without

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