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.

This mount comprises a heavy machined C-casting which pivots in a shoe to form the adjustable polar mount block, a cast DEC axle mount and two pairs of PTFE-lined bearings for the RA and DEC blocks. The axles are 1.5" Stainless steel and the clutches for the worms on each axle are friction driven using springs for constant pressure, with thrust bearings to provide the rotating pressure surface. The RA worm wheel is 8" in diameter and the DEC worm is 4" in diameter, both in phosphor bronze with 3/4" steel worms rotating in mounts with pressed oilite bushes and spacer washes.

The jobs I need to do on this mount include :

• De-rust and re-spray all parts - done
• Polish and paint the DEC and RA setting circles - done
• Clean and wear-in the RA and DEC worm wheels - done
• Build a RA and DEC drive to replace the original synchronous and DC motors to allow GoTo control - underway ( See PIC Microstepper driver & PIC GoTo drive board) - underway
• Fabricate a worm wheel cover for the RA and DEC Worm wheels. - beginning
• Install a digital encoder on the RA and DEC axles to measure 'absolute' periodic error. (The pointing position is already handled using incremental encoders on the worm drives). This will allow me to measure and correct for Periodic Error on the worms without guiding.

So far the mount is largely re-built in the garage with new springs and a stepper motor drive in RA.

Full details here

I am in the process of assembling the materials to make a new telescope pier for the observatory.

They consist of :

• Base plate : 20mm steel plate by 18" on a side
• 13" round by 10mm thick steel plate for the top plate
• 76" tall by 8" diameter steel tube for the main pier

I have the first two but not the last yet. I had one on order from SteelExpress but when I went to pick it up it was 76mm long. Now I believe it will be ordered from Basingstoke Pipe and Tube. It's not cheap for a piece of pipe..

The other issue is how to get the existing mount out - the hole in the observatory floor is smaller than the base of the tripod. Not by design.

The observatory dome drive as configured in the obbo pages has been slipping for a while now. Basically the dome is not perfectly round and so in places the skirt rubs. Add to that the use of smooth wheels on a smooth drive surface and the inevitability of not being perfectly circular and you get a dome that sticks in some places. that's not terribly useful when otherwise the dome would track the 'scope using the ASCOM dome hub.

I went off to Fiveways Bearings to get a quote on using timing belt around the drive edges and suitable pulleys to bear on it. John Smith came up with 25 foot of 1" wide H100 poly belt with 1/2" pitch and two pulleys to ride on it. I cut the belting up into sections and glued it to the flat drive surface with EvoStik. Then I took the old wheels off the motors and replaced them with the pulleys. The end result is a dome that gets the full driving torque of the motors with no slippage and that is a great improvement.

In fact, its sufficiently good and the belting is sufficiently low profile that I am thinking about using it for the up-and-over shutter.

The dome is re-shuttered and re-erected at the bottom of the garden. I have lifted the entire building up on jacks to lift it off the tripod after it settled. This entailed going round the base with a scissor car jack and physically lifting each corner and re-bolting the legs to the metpost sockets but higher up the sockets.

I have sold the 8" Newtonian - more a swap really with MikeMS from UKAI for the mirror grinding machine he had. This machine is of the WAINEO type. This needed a re-jig to provide the top pulley layout - I removed an extra pulley added as a tensioner - it wasn't required and then fitted up the eccentric with a quick-release connector from a bike hub. The last step was to mount all this on a custom-made steel frame to bring it up to working height.

I have moved across to full ASCOM control of the dome and am working on getting the Skybadger dome controller software operational.

I have re-positioned the dome solar panel because winter light wasn't strong enough to keep the batteries charged. And it still isn't

Finally re-assembled you can see the new shutter on the top, the front solar panel and the field to the West that separates me from the A33.