Projects
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I've always liked making things and I'll always try to make stuff before buying if it's practical to do so
On this page -
Observatory My biggest, best and most useful project
I was bored... 2 cheap servo motors from ebay, and a bit of old wire. Job done! Autostar conversion on a Vixen GP-E, and home made PC interface cable Dearer than a Halfords one but so much nicerMeade #497 hand controller refurbishment. Cheap, easy refurb to return your tired #497 keypad to it's best
Wide Field conversion for DSI. Hack an old SLR camera to pieces, mount your DSI in it, & Bob's your uncle (hopefully....)
Observatory - My biggest project so far and deserves a page of it's own, however, I'll just mention here that building my obs has been the single best thing I could possibly have done to improve my hobby. The roof is off and the scope is pointing skyward in 5 minutes flat, meaning that even small breaks in the cloud are worth taking advantage of. Then when I get fed up / tired / cold I just shut the roof and wander back into the house without having to lug a tonne of gear around at two o'clock in the morning. excellent!!
Monopod - A cheap (free) monopod for my binos. I was going to make a parallelogram mount for my binos but when I decided to build an observatory I abandoned the idea through lack of space. My monopod is ideal for my observatory as it takes up hardly any space. It started life as a parasol pole. It's height adjustable, and has a screw thread in the top to which I simply fixed a ball & socket joint from a camera tripod to give horizon to zenith views. A very quick project and a handy bit of kit for nowt. I was amazed at what an improvement this simple bit of kit gave. If possible I hold it against a post to give really solid support.
Battery Free Electric Focuser - When I started webcamming it soon became apparent that my focusing method would need to change. The slightest touch of the focus knob on my rack & pinion focuser resulted in huge image shake making fine focusing a frustrating task. Whilst trawling the web for plans for a homemade leccy focuser I found this design. It looked too good to be true and I just had to try it. I bought a set of 4 servo motors from ebay for £13, and a small pack of gears from Maplins for £3. I had a piece of curly cable lying around so £16 later having cobbled together some ally brackets I've got an electric focuser which will never need batteries. Turning the driver servo results in only around half of that movement at the focuser servo due to frictional losses etc. I geared down at the focuser by 2:1 again giving a fairly fine focusing capability. It works a treat and easily snaps the target into focus without any image movement. Even for visual work it is a vast improvement, focusing stars down to a point easily, something which I have found difficult to achieve in the past
The above pic shows the electric focuser disengaged. In this mode the scope can be focused using the focus knobs as normal
The above pic shows the electric focuser engaged
The above pic shows the entire focuser setup. Turn the remote focusing knob and the focuser turns. Magic!!
Goto Mount - Having considered the various goto & pushto systems on offer to bolt onto my Vixen GP-E German equatorial mount I stumbled on a used Meade LXD75 mount with a full Autostar system. In the hope that the Meade mount would prove to be of reasonable quality I made the purchase. Whilst awaiting the arrival of said article I found the Roboscope chat group, whose main interest is ripping the best bits off these mounts and bolting them to other mounts. One of the suitable mounts mentioned was my existing GP-E. I duly did the conversion (very easy, almost a straight bolt on) and I now have a Vixen GP-E mount with Meade Autostar. the best of both worlds, retaining the silky smooth operation of the Vixen mount, but incorporating the excellent Autostar object locator. The handset has it's own library of 30,000 celestial objects and is also easy to interface with a PC giving access to many more objects.
You can also make your own Autostar PC interface cable very cheaply rather than pay Meade's ludicrous price. I've made 2 of these and they work perfectly, but you shouldn't mess around with electrics unless you know what you're doing. My cables work fine but if you blow your electronics up, DON'T BLAME ME!
Is your well used #497 handset sometimes reluctant to work as it should? If so you could try this simple refurb. I did it to mine and the difference is unbelievable. It now responds to the lightest touch of a button.
12 volt powerpack - for powering the GOTO system in the field. I could have just bought one of those car type powerpacks from Halfords for the same cost but I thought I'd design a tidier, lighter and less bulky item, so I built mine around a Maplins 12v 7.2ah sealed lead acid battery. I simply mounted this in a project box with plenty of foam rubber and wired in charger input sockets and the 12v output. I charge it using a Maplins plug in charger.
Note - I am not an electrician and you shouldn't copy my design unless you know what you're doing. My powerpack works fine but if you blow your electronics up, DON'T BLAME ME!
Maplins Part Numbers -
Battery - MM26D
Project box - KC89W
Charger - LL30H
Meade power plug - AR26D (You'll need some way of connecting it to the output cable. I used the cable from a dead transformer)
Charger connectors & sockets - L20BH, N32AP, L23BH, N35AP
Piggy back spades to connect everything to the battery - L26AY
Not yet off the ground, this is a project I've wanted to try for ages. The finished camera will mount onto a tripod easily, will retain the original SLR viewfinder, will feature interchangeable lenses and will give a much wider field than a DSI normally can. I've acquired 2 ancient Praktica SLRs cheaply from ebay and I'll be butchering them when time allows. I chose Praktica because compared to other '70s SLRs they're quite large & agricultural which should give more space inside the camera body for mounting the DSI. They also use the old Pentax / Praktica M42 x 1 screw fit lenses. These are plentiful & cheap. Watch this space
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