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Posts Made By: Steve VanHyfte

January 5, 2003 01:50 AM Forum: Telescope Making

mount for refractor

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
A good mount for the synta 4", 5" and 6" refractors is a used Meade starfinder EQ mount. I had my 6" on a starfinder and its a very good match. Many of the Meade starfinder scopes found their way into a homemade DOB after the owners were unhappy with the EQ mounts. You might have to fork out $100 or so the mount, but its cheep compared to a G8 ($1500). All you need is to get a longer pier and some tube rings. I even heard of one guy who purachase an entire used Meade 6" scope (tube and mount) just to get the mount, then sold the OTA and broke even, so the mount was free. Just a thought.

January 18, 2003 03:07 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Where can I find 70mm ID tube material?

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
Apogee usually has refractor tubes in various sizes and inexpensive. www.apogeeinc.com

March 27, 2003 11:32 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Dob Alt Bearings:Ebony Star or Velcro

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
Ed Ting, the Scopereveiws guy, made a DOB with velcro Alt. bearings. If you go to the Stellafane website with is Stellafane.com, then select 2001 post convention, then select "all the scopes in the competition", then select page 4, you can see a move of Ed talking about the scope and this feature.

January 25, 2004 06:37 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Stargazer Steve Conversion Project

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
New mirror cell, I routed out the old backing plate, took out the massive counterwieght, installed a new backling plate with ventilation holes, and 3 smaller 8oz weights. I justed used 2"x1/4" fender washers as the weights since they weigh about 1oz each and are only .25Cents each. Each weight pack has a 2" wood cover and a cap nut to hold the weights on. Can easily add or subtract the weights as needed.

April 10, 2004 09:42 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Where can I get sonotube?

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
Make it into a truss tube like this one sold on astromart recently. Or, a few months back, Sky and Telescope showed a Discovery 12.5" that they put casters (wheels) on the base to move it easily.

July 8, 2004 02:42 PM Forum: Telescope Making

New cooling fan setup

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
I went through my notes and found the parts list for my cooling fan setup. All are from Radio Shack.

3" 33CFM, 1.92 watt, .16Amp draw fan #271-265 $18.00
25 Ohm Rheostat, 3 Watt, #273-243 $4.00
On-Off switch, 3 amp, #275-011 $2.50
Knob for rheostat - #274-416 $3.50 (4 in a pack)
1/4" Mono Headphone Power Jack #274-255 $4.00 (2/p)


So just $30 in parts. Need to buy some wiring, and soldering parts too. But I already had that stuff.

Also note, the counterwieghts have no effect on the mirror or seeing, they are "outside the tube".

July 17, 2004 06:24 PM Forum: Telescope Making

dob altitude disk size

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
The rule of Thumb when using teflon and some type of laminate as the bearing materials is to use the same size bearing as the size of the mirror. So a 12" mirror gets a 12" bearing. But really there are so many variables. Several years ago Sky and Telescope reviewed 8 or so 8" Dobs, and the Orion with a small nylon bearing and a spring actually moved and balanced loads better than a premium Starsplitter Dob with the traditional large bearings Eboney Star Formaica. Still if possible, try to use the largest bearing possible that still looks nice too. Just my 2Cents.

July 24, 2004 01:20 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Another Collimation Question

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
If I remember correctly, the Coulter has only minimal collimation adjustments - one of those frustrating push-pull mirror cells and a thick and heavy bar type 2 vane "spider" that has zero provisions for offsets unless you drill out the bar. So, with this in mind, just basic collimation adjustments can be a challenge on this scope, let alone trying to insure offset of the secondary.






August 7, 2004 11:13 PM Forum: Telescope Making

My Latest Scope

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
Just wanted to say your scope looks very very nice. It looks much better than a typical commercial dob with a tube, especially with the "tube cradle" design. Thanks for sharing.

August 8, 2004 02:31 PM Forum: Telescope Making

My Latest Scope

Posted By Steve VanHyfte
A few questions on the nice DOB.
1. Is the tube a sonotube, or a "quick tube", or where did you get the tube.
2. What type of mirror cell?
3. Does the tube cradle have tension screws on the bottom too, or just the top.
P.S. show us somemore photos to tell the story.

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