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Everyone gets hit with "aperture fever" at some stage and I'm no different. I had two 8 inch scopes (Newt & SCT) at different stages but found that I could see little of the objects I wanted visually unless I went to a dark site I moved to a 90mm APO to have a more portable setup that is suitable for photography.
The problem? Well, while the APO is a fantastic bit of kit I really missed being able to get nice views of some of the dimmer DSO's at a dark site. The solution? Build my own scope. I have no DIY skills whatsoever so it seemed like an impossible task but there is so much information available on the web and in fantastic books, such as Kriege & Berry's The Dobsonian Telescope, it actually turned out to be quite easy (if time consuming).
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Here's an interesting problem. One of the guys at our local club (The Galway Astronomy Club) has a Skywatcher 6 inch F8 telescope provided on an EQ3-2 mount. His space is limited and setting up an equatorial mount takes time. He was looking for a quick setup, throw the mount and tube in a car and have a 5 minute setup at a dark site.
Conclusion: replace the eq mount with a dobsonian mount.
The tube is an f8 so the mount would still need to be quite tall to give it some swinging room. Having built a 12.5" F6 truss-tube dobsonian this mount should be alot easier to build. Obviously one thing that would need to be taken into account is the need for some way to mount this solid tube telescope to the mount. Luckily we can build two bearings that will attach to the tube rings that came with the telescope. This gives the added benefit of being able to
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Well the big dob is built and working well. I would love to be able to track the stars and planets without having to nudge all the time though so it's time to start thinking about building an EQ Platform for it to sit on. This will need to be sturdy as the scope is very heavy. Certainly not going to be making bearing out of plywood.
More to come soon!
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I've always had a passion for solar viewing and previously observed in the white light domain. Given an opportunity to purchase a PST Hydrogen Alpha scope for ½ the retail price was a no-brainer.
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William-Optics Megrez 90FD APO Refractor
Now this is by far my favourite possession. Like many people who had not looked through an APO scope before I had always thought that they were a complete waste of money for all but the most exacting of observers! Was I wrong!
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