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.". Your design is simple and nice. I began building it in the spring of 2008, but the bulk of the work was done in July of 2008 with first light occurring on July 25. the nylon screws going up from the bottom, but I found the knitting 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 Subscribe to the premier DIY magazine today, Community access, print, and digital Magazine, and more. This is my copy of the telescope that Sir Isaac Newton presented to the Royal Society of London in 1671, and is considered to be the first successful reflecting telescope. I drilled the holes in the center of the ground board and rocker bottom using a 9/16 bit, thinking that I needed the extra 1/16 so that the spacer could move. On that noteWARNING:do not look directly into the sun and never point a telescope into the sun without proper filtration you can damage your telescope and burn your retinas and possibly go blind i am not a astrophotographer so i cant comment on the quality of the pictures since there is so much doubt on the photos i will gladly take them down. I did find, though, that the 3D printed gear would slip on the shaft, so it needed a set screw. We moved the operation to a nearby park and got a focused image of the most distant trees (300-400 yards away) quite easily. The specific hardware used for this is described on the Building page. Star Adventurer Pro Pack Counter Weight Bar Thumb Screw Upgrade. 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. Not sure how your toilets are built over there, but here they use what is called a tank flush valve. The little app is simple and works great. needle adds no friction that I can feel to the focus action. A smart collection of books, magazines, electronics kits, robots, microcontrollers, tools, supplies, and more As I mentioned on my binocular 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. The blue pieces of the rocker box and ground board are arranged as in the diagrams in (figure 2). Sew the seam, and sew an elastic cord into the top to secure it to the secondary cage. pageTracker._trackPageview(); This can be shimmed out with paper wrapped around the I then temporarily installed the secondary mirror so that I could measure the approximate distance to the center of the secondary in order to locate the holes for the focuser. 1N5408 3A Diode (you may need to make the pins smaller to fit through the holes in the board. As I set of the scope, several club members came over to check things out and it was nice to hear the positive comments on the appearance of the scope. 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. (The 8 inches from the center of the secondary to the field stop in the focuser is the same 8 inches from the center of the focuser to the top of the tube.) Funny how the bigger they are the better for dobs. The focuser knob had two set screws. After waiting for the stain to dry for a day, I applied polyurethane in two coats, going over the surface with 0000 steel wool between coats. I'd In order for the Rocker Box to pivot on the Ground Board, a center pin is placed in a hole at the exact center of the Ground Board and Rocker Bottom. The flat wants to be running parallel to the long axis of the tube. Put it all together Use mild soap and distilled . I was finishing this inner debate when I got a copy of the book The Dobsonian Telescope by Kriege and Berry as a Christmas gift. 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. This motor has a 5mm drive shaft. It was important that the two circles be identical because the edges had to match perfectly when glued together and the two side bearings had to be identical in order for the altitude motion to work well. This sure is going to be a project I will work on. As the authors describe the benefits of a truss design, it is hard to dispute their arguments. A 6 in primary mirror does not have enough weight to make the dob stable. The secondary holder is adjustable, so I could didn't have to get the location perfect. I read the entire thread and surely its going to help me building my focuser. I had the thought that as long as I was going to build it I should build it as big as I could afford. he might just have a $3200 camera, they aren't very hard to come by. I told them to take their time and get it right. I called in the order and explained that I would be using a mirror two inches thick. Unbelievable! When you're ready to go on to testing with the windows driver, you want "myFP2_DRV8825_312-1", open that folder. Today I purchased what is called atank nipple in India. This means you lose much of the night's images. When you want to focus, you just open the program and press focus. The project creator Robert Brown made a good video on testing the board. and an eyepiece. Here is what I was working on but looks like I need a better design. Edited by Pierre Lemay, 25 May 2020 - 08:10 AM. After looking at many focuser options with a big range of prices, I decided to order a GSO 2 speed Crayford focuser from ScopeStuff. Finally, attach your polar alignment device and align it with the hinge. I am thankful to enjoy the inspiration, and the details, that you provide, as I will soon be constructing a Dobsonian Telescope. I also doubled the thickness of the rocker sides (not the front wall) to provide better support for the heavier tube. Some quick tips to note if you are making a homemade telescope are: 1. The current needs to be adjusted on the DRV8825. Look down through the empty focuser. 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. 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. a 3/4" thickness. Have you made any mods on it since you built it? Focuser (GSO 2 speed low profile Crayford): $139 Ebony star strips: 2 @ $10 Ebony star ring: $59 Teflon strip: $11 Telrad base: $10 Baltic Birch " sheet (60X60): $42 Baltic Birch 5/8" sheet (60X60): $48 Circle cutting jig: $30 Birch Veneer (4X8 piece): $65 Hardware, stain, other supplies: $80 Total cost for supplies for this project: $1700 With the DRV8825 and Arduino Nano plugged in, the basic board is complete. Some of these are essential for the basic functionalities of our websites. Motion is very smooth. Overall, I'm very happy with the outcome of this project - focusing is now a joy. With an outer diameter of 14 3/16, I cut the Tube Box sides 15 5/8 and 14 5/8slightly less than my extra inch extra on each side. In the sub-folder "Cases" you will see many variants of the case for the DRV8825 based focusers. work really well, for a fraction of the cost of a commercial Crayford Attach the ball head to the top board. stronger, but would give me a coarser focus action because of their #@$%^#@!!!!! Fairly easy to build and could be adapted to suit any SCT focuser. I think I got what I wanted and seems best solution for me. 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. Share a cool tool or product with the community. Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion The glue should keep the nylon from fraying. I didn't receive any confirmation email after a few days, so I tried to send them an email. ASIAIR - Is there an easy way to load Messier catalog into Autorun? 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. I have no idea how much mail this idea will generate, so I can't Able to make myself using my own humble tools (or toys as the pros will call them!). More Homemade Refractor Telescope DIY Erecting Prism Binoviewer Focuser here: Did you make this project? The Crayford focuser is a simplified focusing mechanism for amateur astronomical telescopes. They have many items for ATMers and I had frequently visited their website when planning my scope. His passion is using CAD design and his homemade CNC router to bring large wood projects to life. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 10 inch or 12 inch. Pretty dry but important! A neet site: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/CAMERAS.HTM Cool instructable, Dude! A week later the cell arrived (on schedule) from University Optics. Share it with us! After a few weeks of no communication from them, no ability to phone or email them, and no mirror cell arriving. I pointed it at distant trees and had no problem bringing the image into focus with all of my eyepieces. Here we see the following components installed: Notice we are NOT populating the parts of the board intended for Wifi or BLED. This simple homemade device will reduce star trails far better than if the camera was mounted on a tripod alone. Sh2-169 and Sh2-168, IC5146 Cocoon Nebula, Caldwell 19, Sh 2-125. spambots that search the internet for addresses to send junk mail to.) Thanks for the great comment. Quick demo of my motorized focuser, and I will create a detailed tutorial if enough people are interested. These will be stored in your browser only with your consent and you have the option to opt-out. Unfortunately I don't have a 3d printer. The spider, or secondary mirror holder, will suspend the mirror in the optical path in order to direct light into the focuser. was straight so I wouldn't get a wobbly knob. 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. They even offered to send the spider, secondary holder, and secondary mirror immediately so that I could begin working on the tube while I waited for the primary. var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-1008534-4"); Two inch internal diameter drawtube. Someone is pulling someone's leg here. That's pretty much the focuser. After you've done that, put a couple of tiny pan-head screws After the pieces were glued together, I used a belt sander to smooth out any rough edges, being careful to keep both rocker sides and both side bearings exactly the same. This is the kind of simple off the shelf design I was looking for. The last time I checked, that particular SBIG camera used on TelescopeGeek had an eight month lead time.A 20" scope gathers 2.6 times more light than a 12.5" scope, therefore equivalent exposures on this one would take 200+ minutes, at least. Rather than use a sheet of plastic Kydex to finish the tube, as recommended in K/B, I ordered a sheet of birch veneer. A decent machinest will do a far better job, but, there is always a lot more pleasure to be gained per astrophoto when you make bits yourself. Able to shift heavy loads of kit ie over 1000g. I built mine entirely from CNC-cut plywood, and fastened it together with 2 bolts. It's easy to shim it to exactly 2" with adhesive labels placed one at a time inside the tube until a 2" eyepiece or 1.25" adapter is snug. I tried this one first and found it wouldn't work for my application. It uses a primary mirror to capture and reflect light, a secondary mirror to direct light into an eyepiece, and a focuser to make fine adjustments for viewing. Because thebasic movement and optics requirements are relatively simple, much of the design is left to the builder. PhotoPictureResizer_190723_214534574_crop_2558x3105_copy_1023x1242.jpg. I paid the 50% deposit and dreamed of DSOs. an inch or so apart, so the focuser body could be pretty low profile. together tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators across the globe. on Introduction. Our websites use cookies to improve your browsing experience. And a couple of upright bearing blocks. All in all it seemed like a pretty robust design, so I gave it 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. I set things up in daylight and collimated the scope. I'm also going to focus on only one version of Robert's focuser (there are many). focusers for that project. Shorter thread side will be used to attach the eyepiece. 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. Two of the holes for the bolts were blocked by knobs. 10 years ago The shroud made from two 22 inch tall containers came out short, so I had to add an eleven inch strip of nylon. They're fairly Step 3The Side Bearings and Rocker Sides. The scope including the optics, truss tubes, and eye pieces all stored in a single box making it easy to store and transport by car, but it was a little too big to fit in the overhead compartment or under the seat on most aircraft. $299.99 More About Telescope Focusers I have already seen some designs on CN, Stellafane and web but still checking if someone has recently made anything simpler. Both cameras have fairly small megapixels by todays' standards, and are certainly obsolete, but do the job extremely well! on my binocular scope for quite a while now and really like them. Picture of DS-4. Pioneered by John Dobson in the 1960s, the instrument combines a Newtonian reflector telescope with a unique two-axis movable base. The original Crayford Focuser is on display there. Make the drawtube longer than you think you'll need, just in you don't need to paint it (or worry about paint flaking off it). One of the neat things about the square design is that the Please feel free to email me at the address on the right. Did you make this project? 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. initiatives for the next generation of makers. After the second call, I received a response that it would be ready at the end of the following week. It interfaces to the computer via USB and comes with an ASCOM driver. Crayford-style design with four bearings and one driveshaft. flexing. Once I decided to build a scope myself I had to decide on the aperture of the scope. my 12.5" trackball, but I didn't This proved fatal for the stepper motor! My first telescope I built was a 10" F8. on Step 5. Once built, line the undersides of the arms with textured ABS plastic as a bearing surface. The kit just contains the electronics - it is up to the user to find a stepper motor and attach it to their own telescope focuser. The focal length of the mirror is 61 inches. Brandon Lawler is a hobbyist telescope Maker and an active member of the Central Texas Astronomical Society. You currently have javascript disabled. corners of the squares provide nice nooks for the eyepiece and eyepiece Obviously an open truss telescope. Fire up focusmax, and shoot some images! Install on Windows 10, this part is pretty straightforward. It has reminded me of one of my long term aims to make a telescope that has been buried by the demands of the rest of my life! exactly 2" with adhesive labels placed one at a time inside the tube Finally, I attached Keepers to the sides of the rocker at the bottom of the arcs using screws and glue. 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. My telescope is the Orion ED80T-CF. Drill a hole and attach the ball head using a shorter 1/4" 20 bolt. This is the first telescope that I have built. help eliminate slippage when the focuser is pointed straight upward. This NEMA-17 direct drive stepper motor is available from Adafruit and many other sellers. curated by us, the people behind Make: and the Maker Faire. on Introduction, Very nice build nikon20. This motor is available on Amazon. 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 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. OK, no, I do not have a homemade Crayford focuser but am planning to build a 3 incher for next years 17" reflector telescope project and to hold my new 30mm ES 100 degree EP. The next day, I called back to ask their opinion about the kind of spider and secondary holder to order. Your astrophotographer friend may have included his own images from his setup. Just as it was about to come into focus, the focuser bottomed out. That helps with low-profile Share it with us! Once your telescope is assembled, drape black woven velveteen around the truss assembly, clipping it with safety pins. wobbly knob still works, and adds character. You will have to line up the diagonal and primary so that you see a centered image of the sonotube opening and the spyder in the eyepiece hole. It has become an indispensable piece of equipment for me that so beats hacking and filing PVC pipes etc. When the skies were dark enough for observing I found that the scope moves easily into position and holds that position well. A couple setscrews and you're up & running with an off the shelf solution. Here is what I was working on but looks like I need a better design. I plan to use an FTA over it in case an extension is needed. I have built a homemade electric focuser for my Celestron 8SE using a radio control hobby servo and some spare parts. This allowed me to cut perfect identical circles. On the bottom of the Bottom board is a ring of Ebony Star laminate that glides over the three teflon pads located directly above the feet on the ground board. I file a dispute with Paypal to begin the process of getting my money back. The mount and tripod are pretty much useless for astrophotography. It turns out that sonotubes are a stock item in 8 inch, 10 inch, 12 inch, and sometimes even 16 inch diameters. I was certain not to move the jig at all before cutting the second circle. Just drill holes in both ends and mount the lenses. 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. Save over 40% off the annual cover price for a full year (4 issues) of Make. In amateur astrophotography, we run our telescopes overnight. like, you can have as much focuser travel as you want no matter how Use the externalMirror Edge Support Calculatorto decide whether to use a two-point, four-point (whiffletree), or sling support. I had to take apart the focuser in order to get my bolts in place. This is not recommended for shared computers. on Introduction. Drill the holes for the knitting The plate has slotted screw holes for tensioning the 6mm belt. 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. Likewise, the side bearings are made of two identical semicircles of 5/8 inch plywood glued together, creating side bearings that are 1 inches thick. small, it's surprisingly rigid. 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. It takes the unknown out of focusing, and is easy to re-focus between filters, or refocus several times during a long exposure run as the world cools down. The mirror box encloses the mirror cell and allows the entire telescope to rotate vertically. Read the documentation though, there are a lot of functions and options. 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. Gift the gift of Make: Magazine this holiday season! This will determine the size of the coupler you will use to connect the stepper motor. 1/4" x 20 bolt, and the nylon bolt end against the smooth knitting But by this time I had thought about building my own scope for several weeks, and getting one off the shelf seemed pretty boring by comparison! If your optical train is heavy and the focuser has to bear it (see above) then this motor may be a better choice. knob, and a drill press to make sure the hole for the knitting needle Reply Only problem is if I put a diagonal it wants to rotate the helical part. Rack & Pinion: For many years the standard focuser was of the rack-and-pinion type - a small pinion gear moved the flat toothed rack that was attached to or built into the moving focusing tube that holds the eyepiece.However, this geared system was far from ideal, with some wobble due to the friction fit between the fixed and moving tubes and backlash due to the gears. DIY Truss Dob input: How to design truss? I want to make this direct drive system work. I found a used 16 primary on eBay. CNC files (optional) Download the Sketchup files. My homemade motorized telescope focuser for Celestron C8. The rocker sides are each made of two identical pieces of inch plywood glued together, creating two sides one inch thick. 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. The base and the rocker box in my telescope are secured with a skate bearing assembly but could be more simply attached with a bolt through the center. (I didn't have the primary mirror yet). Homemade astronomy. If you found some good surplus lenses, you will have made a stunningly good objective for your scope. experimented with various wires and rods and eventually decided that a Plan ahead by carefully weighing all components and approximating the center mass of the optical assembly. until a 2" eyepiece or 1.25" adapter is snug. However more than the focuser, I liked your scope. on Step 5, 9 years ago Next, attach the eyepiece and the focuser to the top part of the telescope tube. It took a lot longer than I expected to receive my mirror and other parts from Discovery. rod for the drive axle it would have a fairly fine motion. 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 will post the pic of final focuser once ready. I wanted to wrap the tube in veneer because I had seen a homemade telescope on a website that used veneer and I liked the look. If you follow the procedures described above, your telescope's optics will be perfectly aligned. Once you get it working, there's some calibration you need to do. Remember: It is the quality and SIZE of the capture chip, NOT the megapixels that determines quality. This software creates a model of your telescope by measuring out of focus star sizes at various points. SDO/HMI Continuum Image on 2023.03.04 at 1259 UT, Remote computer working with no extra networking. 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. If you are (for example) doing a focuser for a catadioptric telescope like a Celestron C-8 or similar, the focus knob has no load on it so this smaller, lighter motor will do the trick. But who cares, really? They said they would make the brackets extra long to accommodate the mirror and it would take about a week. I attached three feet equally spaced on top of the ring, and on the opposite side attached teflon pads 1 X 1 directly above the feet using very small brads and countersinking the brads below the surface of the teflon. I attached them with very small brads, countersinking the brads. If you're not using heavy eyepieces, you probably don't need During on-site assembly, attach each truss to its mounting T-nut using a bolt with a thumbscrew knob. If you wanted to really go low-profile with this design, I would love to see your build when you are finished with it . Perfect for astrophotography or during high power planetary observation. The rocker arms must also have guides to keep it on the track; flat metal 12 braces lined with ABS plastic work nicely. 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. Yet I was also becoming infected with aperture fever. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality. You simply glue or screw the 'nut' part to your scope OTA, and thread the tube part in/out to focus. forces the knitting needle against the drawtube and the drawtube against The part is very strong! 24 T-nuts, with matching 2 bolts and knobs, 8 Aluminum tubing, thin wall, 1 square, 4 lengths I got mine from Cycle 24, Black woven velveteen, 68 Cut it so it stretches along the 6 axis. Showcasing amazing maker projects of 2022. Make sure the shroud can slip on and off of the assembled scope, and that it stretches along the circumference (not lengthwise). A bit of a monster! I knew that I would be returning the mirror cell to them, but just for fun I decided to see how it would fit in the tube.
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