Thanks for your article. 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. 11 years ago One of the companies I had considered as a supplier for the primary mirror was Anttler's Optical. Thanks Pinbout for sharing your design. Once the pieces were cut and I held them around the tube, I decided to cut them a bit smaller because the extra space was too much. I have built a homemade electric focuser for my Celestron 8SE using a radio control hobby servo and some spare parts. Measure the diameter of the exposed shaft. The mount and tripod are pretty much useless for astrophotography. Im sorry to hear you couldn't make the contest. Helical is one of the option i am considering. Quick demo of my motorized focuser, and I will create a detailed tutorial if enough people are interested. Im quite happy with the result, and the view in its large mirror is phenomenal. once. I also wanted to strengthen and protect the cardboard tube. Thanks for the great comment. I built mine entirely from CNC-cut plywood, and fastened it together with 2 bolts. I am thankful to enjoy the inspiration, and the details, that you provide, as I will soon be constructing a Dobsonian Telescope. Your astrophotographer friend may have included his own images from his setup. $299.99 More About Telescope Focusers Thicker walls also required thicker side bearings so that the outside of the bearings would line up with the outside of the rocker sides. Here's a detailed response from a thread at CloudyNights:http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=4721255 "The image scale is wrong on the M31 image, fits too much of the galaxy in for even a 35mm chip. Also no obvious diffraction spikes in the m31 photo. Rock on! focusers for that project. I had cut the 12 foot tube in half in order to get it home in the first place, and a 6 foot section was the right size to work with for my f/5 12.5 inch. Once you get it working, there's some calibration you need to do. I found out pretty quickly that building my own telescope would only be a bargain if I made my own mirror and mechanical parts. A 6 in primary mirror does not have enough weight to make the dob stable. It took about 3 weeks but, since Anttler's did not even reply to the Paypal dispute, I received a Paypal refund. Tom's Homemade Telescope Page - 14 inch dob - Google 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. They eyepiece height ended up being about 5'10" high at zenith. You can view and download the full file here. 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 work really well, for a fraction of the cost of a commercial Crayford was straight so I wouldn't get a wobbly knob. The Crayford focuser is a simplified focusing mechanism for amateur astronomical telescopes. Be creative! Depending on your telescope, one of the Brackets that Robert has may work for you. DO NOT drill out the holes in the board! The current needs to be adjusted on the DRV8825. Then it was time to stain and finish. This was to allow the circle cutting jig to be attached to the board to cut the arcs from a center point of 25 inches above the ground. Focusers of telescopes. Types, difference, specifications - Star Hunter In the sub-folder "Cases" you will see many variants of the case for the DRV8825 based focusers. The motor is much lighter than the geared motor. Subscribe to the premier DIY magazine today, Community access, print, and digital Magazine, and more. Only problem is if I put a diagonal it wants to rotate the helical part. For about $3 we can buy a tank valve kit that has a threaded 2" i.d. 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 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. The company has a reputation for excellent optics, and it was neither the most expensive, nor the least. I set things up in daylight and collimated the scope. Pierre's Helical Crayford gets my vote hands-down for elegant simplicity. Plan ahead by carefully weighing all components and approximating the center mass of the optical assembly. I welded mine from steel square tubing. Thank you for your pages. focuser. Share a cool tool or product with the community. Orient this assembly to allow you to view an object on the far horizon. I had designed the tube box so that there would be an extra inch around the tube. 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. 5 weeks after I had ordered the mirror, I called to ask about its status. Our websites use cookies to improve your browsing experience. It just but try for a snug fit if you can. To interface with the computer, I have used the Artemis Focuser module from Steve, Arthur and Co. After cutting the circles for the side bearings, I set up the jig to cut the curved edges of the rocker sides. Get hands-on with kits, books, and more from the Maker Shed, Skill builder, project tutorials, and more. love to hear from people who are interested in this focuser design. "); The length of the Rocker Front also had to be changed so that the outside edge of the Side Bearings matched the outside edge of the Rocker Sides precisely. The 48 inch width of the veneer was close enough to the diameter of the tube that I used it as is. 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. . My plan for wrapping the tube seemed good, but I am not too pleased with the final result. I read the entire thread and surely its going to help me building my focuser. Every primary telescope mirror has a fixed focal length thats usually 4 to 6 times the width of the mirror. The focuser is very smooth. 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 was annoyed to have made the mistake, but very glad that I checked the position on stars before wrapping the tube in veneer. A homemade 16 inch dob lightweight telescope, DS-4 - XMission I carefully cut exactly through the center of each side bearing circle to make my semicircles. The glue should keep the nylon from fraying. The dimensions of the Tube Box Sides are based on the outer diameter of my tube14 3/16. I described it two years ago in this thread:https://www.cloudyniuser/?p=8879835 . Start with the small components first. Make the drawtube longer than you think you'll need, just in I first tried my 32mm plossl eyepiece. To get this arc, I actually moved the radius of the jig in by 1/8 inch. The cost is a bit more than some of the other combinations, but by only $10 or $20. It was easy enough to drill a hole and tap threads for a I ground and figured the mirror with little troubles, making my focault tester, etc. stronger, but would give me a coarser focus action because of their 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. Building the mirror box is tricky, because the entire optical assembly (mirror cell, mirror box, trusses, secondary cage) must balance at the center of rotation of the arms. The cell from Anttler's, for which I had received a refund, had arrived. } 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. 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. accessible by all ages and skill ranges. I took the whole tube assembly outside. The sides were attached with wood glue and clamps with a few small brads to hold everything in place. A 10 inch scope would not be very much longer or heavier than my 6 inch, yet it would allow me to see much more. An electronic focuser, which moves the focus knob through a combination of hardware and software, solves this problem. With the DRV8825 and Arduino Nano plugged in, the basic board is complete. I tried to call, but the voice mail had a recording stating that the customer was unable to receive messages. By adjusting the bolts, the mirror can be pointed toward the correct spot. Shorter thread side will be used to attach the eyepiece. I have already seen some designs on CN, Stellafane and web but still checking if someone has recently made anything simpler. You won't need to write any sketches from scratch, but you will at least need to figure out how to upload them to the Nano. Over how many nights did this photography session take place? I've been using the above pair More commercial crayford focusers are of a more enclosed form, whereas mine is more "open frame" approach. Above youll find an interactive 3D rendering of the Sketchup file I used to design and cut all of the parts for my telescope. I had some carboy caps that make good knobs. This cost around $100 to build and all of the components came from. the bearings, totally eliminating any flex. 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. : "http://www. How to build a 12.5 inch closed tube Dobsonian telescope. I am working on a diy focuser design for my 6" F/8 telescope and asking suggestions for simple focuser. Connect the Arduino USB cable and upload some test sketches. I 1/4" x 20 bolt, and the nylon bolt end against the smooth knitting telescope page, I wasn't really eager to buy two commercial Crayford Once I decided to build a scope myself I had to decide on the aperture of the scope. installations. 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. 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. Electronics and software automate the process of taking pictures. Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion 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. How to make a $30 DIY star tracker for astrophotography guarantee a response, but I'll do my best to answer everyone who writes Newton, and others including James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain, believed that a reflecting telescope would not be affected by the chromatic aberration that affected . After picking up a copy of The Dobsonian Telescope by David Kriege, I built my first telescope with a 12-diameter mirror, then later tackled a 12 lightweight scope. a 3/4" thickness. And you can tell it's not a mosaic because the stars at the corners show coma/field curvature artifacts. an inch or so apart, so the focuser body could be pretty low profile. After looking at many focuser options with a big range of prices, I decided to order a GSO 2 speed Crayford focuser from ScopeStuff.