For 2 weeks almost now it has been cloudy and raining here in Northeast Ohio. I have a newtonian that I wish to collimate, and still wish to do some photography with it as well as with the 127mm. Last month, we got over 6 inches of rain, when we average about 3 1/2 inches for April.
I have also been thinking about building a larger mount. Being the 127mm is homebuilt, I thought it fitting to build the mount as well. If I can figure one out, using wood and common steel without the need for a metal turning lathe, I may go ahead with a longer focus refractor. The reason I went with the short focus refractor is because I didnt think that my current mount would hold a larger scope. The 114mm Newtonian is almost too big for the mount I currently have. Therefore, if I can build a mount that the 114mm fits comfortably, perhaps I'll build a 127mm X 1200mm focal length scope. I figure a scope of that size would provide good planetary views.
There are some good wood based equatorial mounts online. I would probably base what I would build around one of them, but with some modification. One thing I would like to do is use some ball bearings in the mount to allow it to operate smoothly. The hardest part however would be rigging up a clock drive to whatever I decide to build.
Perhaps I'd be better off buying a CG5 class of mount.
1 comments:
The weather this spring has been awful in our area. I'm just putting the finishing touches on an observatory in the Brookville area, which is about 80 miles east of you... this seems to have triggered the weather anomaly, I apologize.
I've built a couple of Newtonian OTA's, but putting together an equatorial mount has always intimidated me. You can pick-up an LXD75 (like mine) or CG5 for pretty cheap used. Or maybe get an old Polaris/Super Polaris GEM and add your own drives for really cheap.
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