[COLOR="Purple"]...To quote Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein".
"It" being the 18.75" scope I've been wrestling with for the last few years.
Over the weekend I made the rocker sides...for the second time. I also made the rocker bottom...again. I cut the truss poles...for the 6th or 7th time. Do you see a pattern emerging?
After assembling the rocker for the second time, and cutting the truss poles another 1/2", I set the rocker outside on a piece of glassboard and set the OTA into the rocker. I did a rough collimation and popped in the 26mm EP to see if I had cut enough off of the truss poles. With lots of extraneous light flooding the FOV, I twisted the Kineoptics focuser and was rewarded with actual focused star images! So far so good. I may take another 1/4" off of the poles to fine tune them but for now they are okay.
I then spent some "quality" time checking sag and collimation change as I yanked the scope around. surprisingly, for such long poles that are in two pieces that screw together, there was not that much change. I found one spider attachment that was slightly loose, allowing some shift. Tightened that up. I think there is some movement in the secondary too but I need to look at that more carefully this weekend. The focuser board is also a little on the thin side and is sagging some. On the whole, I was surprised that there wasn't more shift. I'm happy!
After making two sides of the mirror box taller to move the alt bearings higher to get into balance, I'm now slightly back heavy. I'll move the alt bearings down slightly or leave everything as is and add an optical finder on the truss poles ala Kurt Mauer.
Having been up and down the ladder a fair amount in the last week, I can tell that a specialized ladder is next on the list. Wider and closer together steps are really needed to make standing more comfortable.
The pic is not from last night but it shows pretty much what the scope looks like at this point.
Still lots to do to have this monster really ready for use but it's creeping closer to being done. 8)
Bill[/COLOR]
"It" being the 18.75" scope I've been wrestling with for the last few years.
Over the weekend I made the rocker sides...for the second time. I also made the rocker bottom...again. I cut the truss poles...for the 6th or 7th time. Do you see a pattern emerging?
After assembling the rocker for the second time, and cutting the truss poles another 1/2", I set the rocker outside on a piece of glassboard and set the OTA into the rocker. I did a rough collimation and popped in the 26mm EP to see if I had cut enough off of the truss poles. With lots of extraneous light flooding the FOV, I twisted the Kineoptics focuser and was rewarded with actual focused star images! So far so good. I may take another 1/4" off of the poles to fine tune them but for now they are okay.
I then spent some "quality" time checking sag and collimation change as I yanked the scope around. surprisingly, for such long poles that are in two pieces that screw together, there was not that much change. I found one spider attachment that was slightly loose, allowing some shift. Tightened that up. I think there is some movement in the secondary too but I need to look at that more carefully this weekend. The focuser board is also a little on the thin side and is sagging some. On the whole, I was surprised that there wasn't more shift. I'm happy!
After making two sides of the mirror box taller to move the alt bearings higher to get into balance, I'm now slightly back heavy. I'll move the alt bearings down slightly or leave everything as is and add an optical finder on the truss poles ala Kurt Mauer.
Having been up and down the ladder a fair amount in the last week, I can tell that a specialized ladder is next on the list. Wider and closer together steps are really needed to make standing more comfortable.
The pic is not from last night but it shows pretty much what the scope looks like at this point.
Still lots to do to have this monster really ready for use but it's creeping closer to being done. 8)
Bill[/COLOR]
Attached Image:
