homemade telescope focuser

in the tube so they'll hit the knitting needle before your drawtube runs In amateur astrophotography, we run our telescopes overnight. I gave them a call and they said they had one on the shelf14 inches in diameter and 12 feet long! It took yet another call a week later for the items to actually be mailed. After going over the surfaces with a tack cloth to pick up the saw dust, I applied the stain and went over it with cheese cloth rags for an even finish. But let me see what items I can arrange to make a helical. Orient this assembly to allow you to view an object on the far horizon. Please feel free to email me at the address on the right. Edited by Pierre Lemay, 25 May 2020 - 08:10 AM. I think I got what I wanted and seems best solution for me. More commercial crayford focusers are of a more enclosed form, whereas mine is more "open frame" approach. Step 4Attaching the Side Bearings and assembling the Rocker. Nice work and great instructable! Total cost for supplies for this project: It took a lot longer than I expected to receive my mirror and other parts from Discovery. 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.". This might have been tempting if I wanted to build a 6 inch scopeat that size, they say that first-timers do pretty well at grinding and figuring their own optics. I have seen some VERY impressive photos similar to those, taken with Nikon D700 and D300 cameras, with the proper filters- and mounts- on a quality scope. Keeping with the 'simple ' part of your request, here is a helical 2"/1.25" focuser made from std plumbing parts. The bigger upvc nut will be attached to focuser plate and longer threaded side will be used on it for the focusing. The extra force will also This combination has proved to be effective for all positions except when the tube is pointed directly up. And a flat thing to put it all on My secondary is 4; for tips on choosing size, click here. After a dry fit of the rocker to make sure that the tube box with side bearings would fit well, I glued the rocker sides to the rocker front, holding them in place with small nails and clamping overnight. I want to put my 12.5 mirror in a collapsible structure so I can haul it easy, Say a truss tube design, 7 years ago Your astrophotographer friend may have included his own images from his setup. Thanks again for the 'ible. Maker-written books designed to inform and delight! Perfect for visual observations with very heavy mirrors. Rock Paper Scissors Using Tinkercad Circuits and Arduino, Punchy the MECH & the Autonomous Fight Club, PCB (printed circuit board) - download the, DRV8825 - stepper motor driver chip/board - again, clones available on. Community Forum Software by IP.BoardLicensed to: Cloudy Nights. The part is very strong! 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). As the thread shows you could also build the dual speed version, all made of plywood, if you feel ready to tackle a slightly more complex project for a cost of about 5$ more. case you need more focuser travel than you thought. Look down through the empty focuser. Two inch internal diameter drawtube. I don't have the skills to build a focuser using a. The base of the telescope should be a wide, sturdy square or circle of wood with teflon bearing pads matched to the ABS plastic ring of the rocker box. And the legs of the base should be as wide as possible to accommodate weight imbalance as the telescope is moved around, to avoid tipping. LVLaserTech is right please do not vote for the pictures my instructable is for the build of the telescope not the quality of the photos.and as i said before i was not there is there a possibility that he sent me the wrong photos sure is there a possibility that he used a different mount than the one i saw sure is there a possibility that he is lying to me me about what he did sure. Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion with a genuine question or comment about the design. 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. focuser. } catch(err) {}, SH-232 Sharpless sh-232, sh-231, sh-233, sh-235, NGC2174 Monkey Head Nebula, Sharpless 252, Sh2-252, HDW3 Hartl-Dengel-Weinberger 3 PN G149.4-09.2, SH-198 Sharpless 198, Soul Nebula, IC1848, NGC281 IC11, Sharpless Sh2-184, Pacman Nebula, SH2-173 SH2-173 Phantom of the Opera LBN 593, SH2-168 Sharpless HII regions. Once Id built a CNC router, I embarked on my third telescope, featuring a 16 primary mirror with aluminum trusses, wide vertical bearing arcs, a steel front-adjustable mirror cell, and a rotating base. A Pocket Sundial From a Broken Pocket Watch! Today I purchased what is called atank nipple in India. I only do functional. Orion Dynamo Mini for powering a Nexstar 6SE? Well, it sort of looks like a focuser.. See pictures below. knitting needle where it goes through the hole, so it's not a big deal, The plate has slotted screw holes for tensioning the 6mm belt. I have built a homemade electric focuser for my Celestron 8SE using a radio control hobby servo and some spare parts. Built one of these http://emediadesigns.com/focuser/ working really well only cost less than 40.00. I had considered using a clear finish alone, but decided to use a dark red finish on the base and a clear finish on the tube, just because I like the look. This project is based on Robert Brown's "Arduino ASCOM Focuser Pro2 DIY". Frustrated by these difficulties, I stopped by one more hardware store to ask for advice. Pierre Lemay, thanks for sharing your simple and incredible design. I Then it was time to stain and finish. The focuser is very smooth. The spider, or secondary mirror holder, will suspend the mirror in the optical path in order to direct light into the focuser. This motor has a 5mm drive shaft. All in all it seemed like a pretty robust design, so I gave it At this point, the scope was pretty much finished. Topics such as This motor is available on Amazon. I have already seen some designs on CN, Stellafane and web but still checking if someone has recently made anything simpler. On the cutting diagram, you can see that the side bearings were cut 26 inches long. an inch or so apart, so the focuser body could be pretty low profile. When they arrived, they were beautifully and carefully packaged with the secondary already installed in its holder. Line the underside of the rocker box with a ring of ABS plastic to allow it to ride on the base. work really well, for a fraction of the cost of a commercial Crayford This focuser (see pic at bottom) was motorised by me several years ago, but the motorised system didn't give me very fine control, and the motor running at fast speed tended to make the Artemis camera crash. 10 years ago I took the whole tube assembly outside. document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); Thin 1/16 Kydex plastic should be cut to length to line the inside of the cage as a baffle to block outside light. I was concerned that it would be difficult to find, but I was able to order it from a local woodworking shop. I had designed the tube box so that there would be an extra inch around the tube. I then ran a bead of glue on the mark, and after it dried I cut out the nylon up to the glue. But, like many of you I'm sure, the biggest reason I'm doing this is for the pure geeky fun of it! They said they would make the brackets extra long to accommodate the mirror and it would take about a week. by cranking I did not glue the bearings to the tube box in case I needed to adjust the position later. A 6 in primary mirror does not have enough weight to make the dob stable. The heaviest piece is 40 lbs, and the total scope weighs about 60 lbs (not counting the baffle). I've been using the above pair An electronic focuser, which moves the focus knob through a combination of hardware and software, solves this problem. When I looked at the costs, I seriously considered buying an Orion telescope instead of building my own. To hold the tube in place within the tube box, I used a combination of pieces of felt inside the box and wooden shims between the tube and the box. This is because my router bit was inch and the arc would be cut by the outside edge of the bit (where the circle had been cut by the inside edge.) a "rubbery" feel. I feel it is a wonderful thing to free oneself from the "store-bought" world, as Tombaugh did, and to use your imagination and skills to develop your own, personal way of viewing the sky. So, for my telescope I used a 6mm to 5mm coupler available on Amazon. I wasn't there so i can be 100% but i do not think my friend was lying to me and i believe the pictures are from my telescope my kids use it for stargazing a lot i have seen some deepspace but i use it mainly for sketching the moon and i like to view solar flares. The project took several months off and on to complete, although a skilled Maker could put a similar one together in a few weeks. Just to make sure I liked the stain, I applied some to a piece of scrap wood. Position "0" is with the focuser all the way IN (at least for a refractor). My concern turned to alarm when my wife told me that Discovery had charged the balance due on all items to my account a few weeks earlier. His project is very well documented. The Crayford focuser is a simplified focusing mechanism for amateur astronomical telescopes. I was inspired to build telescopes during a trip out to McDonald Observatory in west Texas, where I saw a 36 fork-mounted telescope, tiny in comparison to the huge research telescopes at the site. I will have a lot of fun building my homemade 12.5 inch Dobsonian Telescope!!! Connect the Arduino USB cable and upload some test sketches. Also, I will work with my computer geek buddies, so that we eventually automate it using Linux on a Rock64, to run kstars for tracking, on INDI. Because mirror flexure can distort an image, supporting the mirror properly involves building a flotation cell. I had considered a Moonlite or Featherlite focuser, but I knew from my experience with my 6 inch scope that I wanted a 2 speed focuser, and the price tag of their 2 speed focusers scared me away. My telescope is the Orion ED80T-CF. This allowed me to cut perfect identical circles. This can be shimmed out with paper wrapped around the Post 10 of the same LSDF focuser thread also links to Art Bianconi's archived 2008 original flush valve focuser posts. In addition, we use third-party cookies to help us analyze and understand usage. The wood would cost the same, as would pretty much everything except the mirror, so why not spend a little more on the mirror and go BIG. They suggested a construction supply place on the other side of the city that I had not called yet. The sides were attached with wood glue and clamps with a few small brads to hold everything in place. Crayford-style design with four bearings and one driveshaft. Your choice here will be recorded for all Make.co Websites. Place the focuser, draw the position of the screws with a pencil and remove the focuser. This proved fatal for the stepper motor! With an outer diameter of 14 3/16, I cut the Tube Box sides 15 5/8 and 14 5/8slightly less than my extra inch extra on each side. All Orion 1.25" and 2" telescope focusers are engineered to provide smooth drawtube action to ensure you hit the exact focus point . Perfect for astrophotography or during high power planetary observation. Once your telescope is assembled, drape black woven velveteen around the truss assembly, clipping it with safety pins. it sticks into your light path. It is size 1.25 inch with a clear inside dia-meter. 7 years ago However more than the focuser, I liked your scope. I also doubled the thickness of the rocker sides (not the front wall) to provide better support for the heavier tube. I sanded all parts of the telescope with 220 grit sandpaper followed by 400 grit, making a very smooth surface to apply the stain. Cost is $25 - $30, and you will have 5 PCBs in about a week. This sure is going to be a project I will work on. That way you won't be dropping your drawtube and Rock Paper Scissors Using Tinkercad Circuits and Arduino, Punchy the MECH & the Autonomous Fight Club, Soft-sensor-saurus | an E-textile Soft Sensor Soft Toy With LED Light. control. How to build a 12.5 inch closed tube Dobsonian telescope. Ideally, the spacer would be 1 inch long and have a smaller diameter, but I didn't get this one right the first time. I Hope to give you ideas if you are thinking about building one for yourself! This is the upper tube that contains the flat secondary mirror, Telrad finder, and focuser. And for those who like to work with 3D printers, both the single speed and dual-speed versions could easily be printed. I had already made a lightweight focuser for The arc at the top of the sides needed to have a radius 1/8 inch larger than that of the side bearings to account for the thickness of the teflon pads that would fit between. This consists of a small black box of electronics. Until I see photos of this scope setup for these pictures and an explanation of the exact equipment used, I cannot believe that these pictures were taken with this OTA. Here's my 8" f/6 travel scope with a 2" PVC draw tube and the helical Crayford focuser built right in the focuser board. I placed my telrad, optical finder, and an eyepiece on the focuser end of the tube and, using a broomstick as a balance point, found that the tube balanced 22 inches from the bottom. Use the externalMirror Edge Support Calculatorto decide whether to use a two-point, four-point (whiffletree), or sling support. Above youll find an interactive 3D rendering of the Sketchup file I used to design and cut all of the parts for my telescope. The mount and tripod are pretty much useless for astrophotography. The focuser is the part of the telescope that holds the eyepiece or camera, and by moving in or out, closer or farther from the . I drew a guide line straight down the side of the tube and cut the veneer to length with one extra inch on each side68 inches long. After you've done that, put a couple of tiny pan-head screws Pioneered by John Dobson in the 1960s, the instrument combines a Newtonian reflector telescope with a unique two-axis movable base. We were careful to press out any bubbles as we went, but when the job was done we found that there were multiple bubbles in the veneer. Featured in the February, 2015 issue of Sky & In my build, the minimum eyepiece-to-secondary mirror distance (13) plus the primary-to-secondary mirror distance (57) equals the focal length of 71, which is roughly 4.5 times the width of the 16 mirror. You simply glue or screw the 'nut' part to your scope OTA, and thread the tube part in/out to focus. In my case I decided to make a custom bracket. Bore out some 2.5 inch bar and mill a flat down the side making sure it is lined up. This one is based on the DRV8825 driver chip and a NEMA-17 stepper motor. Link to the motor speed controller kit:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=KC5225(a 5K external potentiometer will be required): http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=RP3508The drive motor:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=YG2734The gears:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=YG2736The motor forward/reverse switch:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ST0506The push button:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=SP0711 Among amateur telescopes, the most common are focusers with landing diameters of 1.25 ", 2", rarely 0.965 ", and even less often - 3". small, it's surprisingly rigid. After the glue dried but before the clamps were removed, I added corner braces to all four corners of the tube using glue and brads to hold them in place. installations. If you look in the FILES area on Robert Brown's site (see link above) you will see a sub-folder "3D Printed Parts". Un-real!!! I called in the order and explained that I would be using a mirror two inches thick. I welded mine from steel square tubing. The cutting diagram in (figure 1) shows how I cut the required pieces from two 60 X 60 pieces of Baltic Birch plywood, one inch thick, and one 5/8. It doesn't. A tilted focuser will have no effect on the image quality. Please explain, in detail, how you attached your tube to the very unique drive system of an XT12G mount. 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. Here we see the following components installed: Notice we are NOT populating the parts of the board intended for Wifi or BLED. a try. I really had to, since the underside of my telescope's focuser is all curves, no flat area for attaching the mounting bracket. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality. like, you can have as much focuser travel as you want no matter how Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion focusers, normally found in this type of device. The Focuser and other items: (Scope Stuff). Below are cutting diagrams and diagrams of the rocker and tube box with side bearings. I paid the 50% deposit and dreamed of DSOs. I used one of the top scraps from the rocker sides to mark an angle of 70 degrees from the center of the arc to the curved cut in order to properly space 1 X 7/8 teflon pads on the arcs. I pointed it at distant trees and had no problem bringing the image into focus with all of my eyepieces. If you go to buy all of the components for this project from dealers, you will see that you mostly have to buy at least 5 parts, sometimes bags of 50 parts! occurred to me that a square turned 45 degrees would give me two flat Although they don't usually sell these parts, because I had ordered the mirrors from them they offered to sell me the spider and secondary holder that they use in their scopes. 4 years ago 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. (Sorry you A few months later I ordered some other things from Scopestuff, including strips of Ebony Star laminate for the side bearings, a ring of Ebony Star for the rocker bottom, a strip of teflon to cut pieces for the ground board and side bearings, and a new base for my Telrad finder. My guess is that photo was taken with a refractor. Move the jigs until you can comfortably place a variety of eyepieces in the focuser and get a sharp image, then carefully measure the separation distances. Since there is no drill bit that exactly matches the 13.1mm of the shaft, I had to do some rough enlargement of the hole. Make sure the shroud can slip on and off of the assembled scope, and that it stretches along the circumference (not lengthwise). This is the kind of simple off the shelf design I was looking for. Not sure if it is available in the USA. Able to shift heavy loads of kit ie over 1000g. One of the neat things about the square design is that the 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. If you mess up, you can turn the hole into a slot, but avoid His passion is using CAD design and his homemade CNC router to bring large wood projects to life. The holes in the main bracket the match the holes in the plate are oversize to allow for this alignment. 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. 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. off the bearings. Save over 40% off the annual cover price for a full year (4 issues) of Make. Here is a link to the main FILES area on Robert Brown's site. Put it all together Now attach the screw eyes and the rubber band on the side of the board. Newton, and others including James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain, believed that a reflecting telescope would not be affected by the chromatic aberration that affected . And you can tell it's not a mosaic because the stars at the corners show coma/field curvature artifacts. a 3/4" thickness. As I mentioned on my binocular Drill the holes for the knitting 11 years ago My DIY Motorized Telescope Focuser - YouTube I use a 3D printer and an old gear motor to create an electronic telescope focuser.This is my first attempt at voiceover, I'm using a headset. Attach the ball head to the top board. This simple homemade device will reduce star trails far better than if the camera was mounted on a tripod alone. As I understand, you are using it for a refractor. My concern turned to alarm when my wife told me that Discovery had charged the balance due on all items to my account a few weeks earlier. The mirror box encloses the mirror cell and allows the entire telescope to rotate vertically. 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. I do it with aluminium alloy, aluminium tube and nice work. Finally, I attached Keepers to the sides of the rocker at the bottom of the arcs using screws and glue. At some point in the building process, my goal became to finish the scope by RocheStar Fest, an annual event of the Rochester Astronomy Club. needle adds no friction that I can feel to the focus action. After another 3 weeks, I was concerned that I had not received the mirror. forward and back along with the drawtube when you focus, and you'll get Given any mirror measurements, PLOP will provide the ideal support layout and how much distortion to expect for any number of flotation points. 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. A week after they said they would send the secondary and other parts, I called to ask if things had been sent. 8 years ago Knitting needles are The pivot bolt consists of a 1 1/8 inch brass spacer with an 11/16 inch outer diameter, a 3/8 inch bolt 2 inches long, a stop nut, and two large washers. When the skies were dark enough for observing I found that the scope moves easily into position and holds that position well. While I applaud your building of a homemade Dob, (giving you the FULL benefit of the doubt here) your "friend" has provided photographs that make it look like you're trying to win by cheating. But, especially on cold evenings, the focus may go out in the middle of the night. I hate focusing. You need a drawtube of course. I called to express my concern and was told that it had all been packaged a few weeks ago and that it should have been sent. I had some carboy caps that make good knobs. Plus it comes in black, so There are a number of technical reasons why these photographs could not have come from this Optical Tube Assembly. ASIAIR - Is there an easy way to load Messier catalog into Autorun? Now I can simply insert the PVC cap on the end of a 4" pvc tube. corners of the squares provide nice nooks for the eyepiece and eyepiece You will need to order one sized for your telescope's focuser shaft size. The little app is simple and works great. Low, or Zero slop when changing direction. Several functions may not work. microcontrollers including Arduino and Raspberry Pi, Drones and 3D Printing, and more. Thanks Peter. After looking at many focuser options with a big range of prices, I decided to order a GSO 2 speed Crayford focuser from ScopeStuff. I installed the spider first, about one inch down from the end of the square end of the tube. 5 weeks after I had ordered the mirror, I called to ask about its status. The focuser 'knob' on the Celestron is just a rubber sleeve that usually pulls off easily. To make the hole for the focuser, I used the focuser tube to mark a circle in the shroud. The cell from Anttler's, for which I had received a refund, had arrived. I have no idea how much mail this idea will generate, so I can't crafts, science & engineering, design, and technology. It is used to setup water outlet from overhead water tanks. That is dirt cheap compared to the cost of commercially available focusers, which can top $1000 and are much heavier than what we will build. knob, and a drill press to make sure the hole for the knitting needle Plus it comes in black, so you don't need to paint it (or worry about paint flaking off it). Make the drawtube longer than you think you'll need, just in PhotoPictureResizer_190723_214534574_crop_2558x3105_copy_1023x1242.jpg. This arrangement turns 100% true, no wobble. I plan to use an FTA over it in case an extension is needed. I tried to call, but the voice mail had a recording stating that the customer was unable to receive messages. This means you lose much of the night's images. Earthbound1 likes this #2 dave brock Mercury-Atlas tube and nut that fits the outside threads. "https://ssl." pageTracker._trackPageview(); forces the knitting needle against the drawtube and the drawtube against I call shenanigans on every picture in this post except for the the moon. I have not yet figured out a better way to hold the tube. It was easy enough to drill a hole and tap threads for a But I wanted a larger mirror, and, at that size, grinding my own was not an option. Realizing that it could not be the University Optics cell already, I thought, Noit couldn't be but, in fact, it was. This cost around $100 to build and all of the components came from Jaycar, except the brackets which were made with 1.2mm sheet metal. . The mirror itself must also be able to tilt in three dimensions in order to aim its light at the secondary mirror (a process called collimation). I like the old way of using stepper motors and other stuff introduced years ago by Mel Bartels, he is a master for me. This makes for better sky photographs as the exposure time can be lengthened,. Most of these have one or two set screws. Like i said these are not my photos and i cannot coment on exactly how he set it up as i was not there all i can say is i saw the mount he used when he picked up the telescope. After a few weeks of no communication from them, no ability to phone or email them, and no mirror cell arriving.

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homemade telescope focuser