Blogs Astronomy in Focus New Parts Have Arrived
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New Parts Have Arrived
About 2 weeks ago, I put an order with my buddy Scott at the Manitoba Museum for some parts for my rig. Well they arrived last weekend, but I just hadn't had time to pick them up. I had the day off yesterday, so I made the trip downtown with my daughter.
All told, I bought four items:
The small accessory case is substantially smaller than I expected, and really only serves to house small parts. I did find that if I removed the foam inserts leaving the slightly padded interior, it worked fabulously for hand controllers (Syntek controller for the Atlas EQ-G and two hand controllers for the focusers).
The large accessory case, on the other hand has more than enough space to hold all of my non-photographic accessories. There spots for 8 1.25-inch eyepices, 3 2-inch eyepieces, barlows, filter cases, etc...
The 10x50 binoculars are a massive improvement over my existing 12x50s which are not only heavier, but have also seeing their fair share of abuse.
Now the 90mm refractor; that's something else. This was combined with the parts that arrived a few days ago from ADM accessories, I've got the 90mm refractor, which is going to ultimately serve as my guidescope, piggy-backed onto my 6" f/5 reflector. To support the completly computerized use of my rig, I promptly installed the AccuFocus Electronic Focuser that I bought last year when it was on sale.
While I was installing the focuser, and came to the realization that these latest additions to my rig will require the installion of new counterweights, I noted that the threads on the eyepiece adapter of the refractor looked oddly familiar. I quickly dug into my photographic accessories, which at this point were strewn all over the living room, and desperately tried to find my K10D adapter. Having difficulty, I decided the recently purchaed Orion Starshoot Autoguider (SSAG) was good enough.
I quickly removed the SSAG's 1.25-inch nosepiece and confirmed it had T-rings. On a hunch, I spun the SSAG onto the focuser tube of the 90mm refractor and was amazed that it fit. Not only does this mean that I don't need the nose cone, but by using T-rings along the entire optical train, will surely stiffen the optical train of the refractor hopefully eliminating (or at least substantially minimizing) flexure, which is not a good thing to have in a guiding system, even if I have to use an an extender tube to achieve focus (which seems to be likely). All told Very Cool!
