Updates to the telescope
Well, now that I've had the scope for a while I have noticed several things.
First I noticed that the high power (9mm) eyepiece that was provided with the telescope was a real piece of garbage. There are visible glue streaks and bubbles in it. A real pain to see anything decently with it. So the first thing to obtain was a decent eyepiece. I ended up with an Edmunds Scientific RKE 15mm eyepiece. Since the 26mm unit sent with the telescope was alright, I thought this was the way to go. I also bought the 2.5 Barlow from Edmunds. This gave me a pretty good range of magnifications available.
Second I made my tripod more rigid. I noticed that some telescope tripods have a wedge to make them more stable. Then I read somewhere how someone had made their tripod more rigid. (I wish I could remember where it was so that I could post a link!)
Anyhow, I made a plywood disk for the wedge. I purchased a small plywood disk from Lowes (about $7.00) and cut it to size with a scroll saw at 20 degrees of bevel to match the tripod stance I prefer. (At this oposition the tripod is not completely spread out, but I can carry the whole unit out the door. This way the scope gets a lot more use than if I had to readjust the tripod every time.) I then drilled a hole in the center for the all thread.
The equitorial mount was attached to the tripod with a 10mm bolt. I went to the local Fastenal dealer and purchased a three foot piece of 10mm all thread. It cost $5.00. I bought two 10mm wingnuts at Lowes for about $2.00. I had to remove the original shelf for eyepieces, but the all thread is threaded into the mount and the wingnut is used to tighten the mount in place. The wood wedge went in place next and the wingnut on the bottom pulls it up into the tripod legs to spread them. Hopefully the picture helps.
Now that I have something to spread the legs at the top, I need something to pull them back together at the bottom. This was accomplished with nylon rope and a turnbuckle. The rope is attached to the tripod with square U-bolts, and some snap links with a little wood. The picture makes it easier to understand.
So in principle, the top spreads and the bottom pulls it in. The tripod is still adjustable for height. The results were great. The tripod used to shake for about 25 seconds. This has been dampened down to about 10 seconds. (The rest of the problem is in the mout.) I'll work on that later.
Most recently (Last night) I made a servo focuser for the scope. I got the idea from this article on the web.
Here are some pictures. I replaced one of the focuser knobs with a timing belt pulley of about the same size that I bought at the hobby shop. (It's made for radio controlled cars.) The Drive pulley and cogged belt come from the same source. I think that both servos ($12 each) and all parts cost me less than $40 total. It really helps. I can now focus without touching the scope. High powered views are easy to pull into perfect focus.
