Welcome to the Skybadger astronomical pages.
This website is to record an interest in astronomy and share the results.
The background page attempts to
explain why I am interested in astronomy and provides a potted history of
astronomy experience and publications.
The equipment page more fully
explores the equipment I use, its limitations and why I use it. The biggest
downside to astronomy as a hobby is that if you haven't got the time, the skill
or sometimes the equipment to make parts you have to buy, beg or swap them. And
astronomy parts can be very expensive....
Content
Additions - September 09
The recent additions to the site are :
- The additions of the M-O-M Mirror making machine used for grinding
a 6" first mirror..
- The system requirements and design for a
Telescope system controllerconsisting of motors, encoders, handset, telescope pointing model and PEC.
- The ASCOM dome automation pages
under the techniques section to finish off the record of the Skybadger observatory automation. Note that these are still missing the
drive belt and sprockets modification to provide more torque to the dome rim using 1/2" pitch drive belt glued on. Pictures are at the bottom of the page.
News - September 09
Other news is the beginning of a large split ring horseshoe mount intended for a fully automated and autonomic remote observatory.
The idea here is to provide a complete
small-scale observatory that is filled by a large telescope mount and telescope for remote observing. I had a spare kitchen worktop lying around
so I cut a 36" circle from it for the Horseshoe and designed the rest.
and started selecting the rest of the frame and the bearings etc. This will now have to wait until the pier is completed.
I'm also just completing a massive new steel telescope pier and successful removal of the old from the observatory requiring a full strip-down and rebuild.
The Obbo has a large inverted step-pyramind of concrete under it for the
pier, the rest of the obbo resting on flagstones on tamped soil. The floor of the Obbo has a hole in it to let the pier through. However due to a design error
it was too small for the tetrahedral base of the old pier and so over the last fortnight the Obbo has been pulled apart, re-painted and renovated, the old mount un-bolted and
footings for the new one put in. Pictures to follow.
Finally the AE system mount will have a choice of two drives - one an iOptron drive system and hand controller and one I'm writing myself.
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I have purchased an old Astro Systems of Luton Mount from MikeMS which will be the basis of my long term heavyweight
telescope mounting capability. This mount should be capable of hefting a 16" Cassegrain and currently hosts a 10" skeleton tube reflector.
The intention is for it to carry a 12" reflector, a 8" Cassegrain and associated guide scopes in the observatory.
So far the mount is largely re-built in the garage with new springs and a stepper motor drive in RA.
More details here
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Projects in Astronomy include:
After swapping the Newtonian Mount and OTA with MikeMS for a MoM mirror grinding machine in an almost completed state, I have
fixed it up, completed it, varnished it and have completed a 6" trial mirror to the polishing stage. along
the way I needed to make a spherometer, mirror mount for testing, foucault tester and light source.
There are some pictures:
I have removed the pan-and-tilt webcam and am replacing it with a low-light wide-angle camera for monitoring the inside of the observatory.
Try here for a streamed media feed, if turned on.
Implementing the thermal scanning cloud camera on the observatory. The housing and panning mechanism is in place now. I can control and query it via VBScript here or there is the tool from DevaSys to create an image. This goes with the Devantech USB to I2C Adapter for easy Comm port access to the I2C bus.
The next step is wrap this up in more script and make it create colour images from the output. Logging the magnetic compass field data and comparing with published magnetic field data to check whether I can use this data as an aurora alert meter.
These results are now in and the answer is yes - if you can a sufficiently stable power supply. I'm using two 6V/3AH batteries in
series to give 12V and +/-6 off a 5W solar panel and tend to get good results for a few days and the n during the day only after that as the batteries have
emptied their own charge. See this page for some results : Results from a I2C robotics magnetometer Changing the telescope arrangement from mounting sub-scopes on the main tube to all scopes mounted off a large accessory plate.
This mod has also been made and can be seen in the current pics in the equipment pages. It all works fine. Right at the limit of the mount though. Wish we could
all afford a Paramount. Changing the GP-DX drive gearing from 1:1 off the motor to 1:2 off the motor. This gives increased torque at the worm for driving heavier loads. The SS2K controller has had its speed settings
increased approporiately to adjust. See the above picture for details. The gears are HPC 84:42 teeth Mod 48 in steel. The boss needs to be a tight 6.0mm fit. I took a normal
gear which has a 6.4mm boss and bored it out for a new boss.
Latest
The techniques pages have been updated to include more pictures of each of the projects stuff
such as mirror Grinding machine, spherometer, foucault tester etc.
Also the mirror grinding table I put together to make the rough-cut mirrors I had more circular.
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