The BARF Telescope Thread

[DReg350]

Don't know if anyone has one or is interested, but what the heck. How bout a Telescope thread! I'll start.

I have a 10" Orion XTG, which is a GOTO. It's my medium size scope, but it's pretty heavy to move around. I usually have to place the rocker box (bottom), then insert the OTA (Optical Tube Assembley) seperately to minimize the lift. Our City Mothers and Fathers, in thier infinate wisdom saw fit to remove the light shield from the street light in front of my house and install some oh so lovely BRIGHT LEDs. It killed astronomy in my driveway. I have park right in front of my house that I can use, but it's a pain to get the scope, and boxes of eyepieces, filters, finders, hand controller, etc out there. So... I spent part of my last weekend building a cart. It's all stainless. The leveling feet and handles will be here later today from McMaster. The threaded rod is already cut and ready to go. This is what we came up with...


It breaks down small so I can take it with me camping. It's a snap to assemble using quick disconect pins


One direction is Off-Road mode. About 7" of clearance


And the other direction is Driveway/Park mode


This is with the handle attached. It can flip either direction. The foam grips for the handle are in the mail now and should be here Friday


And here it is with the scope mounted

 

[HappyHighwayman]

WOW

 

[Mike95060]

Woaaahhhh. Sweet. I know jack squat about telescopes but that is bad ass.

 

[byke]

Neat! An old coworker had land in bfe Nevada and would stack some seriously amazing photos. Always wanted to get into it, but hobby bandwidth is at zero. Hope to see this thread grow.

 

[DReg350]

Here's one more that shows the quick disconnects and the holes that the rockerbox feet slip into to lock it in place. I used a wide angle lense, so I don't really have that much camber in the rear wheels. :laughing

 

[mean dad]

I've always liked telescopes. Had a few different ones throughout the years but nothing on that scale.

I currently have one that's supposed to automatically find whatever star you want but the gears are stripped out so it's just a table-top unit now.
Once we're settled in at the new place I'll pick up a nice one.

 

[Blankpage]

Gonna look crazy dragging that around at the beach but still :cool

 

[DReg350]

It's a fun hobby, for me. I love galaxies and nebulae best. Globular and open clusters are ok sometimes. Planets on a dark transparent still night are spectacular. Seeing the moons of Jupiter, the rings and bands of Saturn and the poles of Mars is so cool in a very nerdy way. :nerd

It took me over 5 years to build my BMW F650GS the way I wanted it. It's taken far longer to collect all the pieces to this puzzle. But, I had some wonderful mentors who helped me learn and keep the cost to a minimum along the way... relatively speaking.

My large scope is 16" open beam design. I still have to finish the rocker-box and altitude bearings. I hope to get further on that this summer.

 

[Silence]

Are you digiscoping at all if your rig? If not, you should and if you are, YOU MUST SHARE YOUR PICTURES WITH US!!!!!

 

[Brokenlink]

Bring that shit up here man, we'll see some stars for sure.

 

[Hoho]

Bring that shit up here man, we'll see some stars for sure.

Oh, hell yeah. I was in the middle of nowhere in Death Valley and the lack of light pollution made it an amazing place to take some long exposure photos. Same thing with Mike’s place up north. Nobody realizes just how much light pollution there is until they go somewhere with very little or no light pollution.

 

[ctwo]

Yeah, I have 3 or 4 of 'em. For a while I lusted after a CGX 1400, then I wanted an Obsession 22. To expensive though so I thought of DIY, including grinding my own mirrors. Never happened.

My first scope was an Edmund Scientific 6" EQ. Then I picked up a Questar 3.5. Then found a Coulter Odyssey 13.1. I picked up a Konuspot 100 for shooting, but used it more for astronomy.

Time for a Star Partyarty

 

[Not Sure]

Yeah, I have 3 or 4 of 'em. For a while I lusted after a CGX 1400, then I wanted an Obsession 22. To expensive though so I thought of DIY, including grinding my own mirrors. Never happened.

My first scope was an Edmund Scientific 6" EQ. Then I picked up a Questar 3.5. Then found a Coulter Odyssey 13.1. I picked up a Konuspot 100 for shooting, but used it more for astronomy.

Time for a Star Partyarty

I like big buckets and I cannot lie! Here be my 8" Orion XT8 Limited Edition (in red... ohhh la la).... collecting space dust in the corner, looking for a good time! Sign myself and the wifey up for a partaay arty



Astronomy in teh barfs is looking up!

 

[Hoho]

Damn, that’s one serious telescope!

 

[DReg350]

Neat! An old coworker had land in bfe Nevada and would stack some seriously amazing photos. Always wanted to get into it, but hobby bandwidth is at zero. Hope to see this thread grow.

Astrophotographers are a special breed of human being. It's an arm of the hobby I haven't ventured down, but man can I appreciate it.

Are you digiscoping at all if your rig? If not, you should and if you are, YOU MUST SHARE YOUR PICTURES WITH US!!!!!

Yeah, it's cool, but way over my pay grade. It takes MUCH money, patience, and skill. It's not for the impulsive at all. Plus, dobsonians aren't really good scopes for astrophotgraphy. You'd want an achromat for that. I'd have to sell every single astro thing I have and I still wouldn't have enough for the scope alone. :laughing

Yeah, I have 3 or 4 of 'em. For a while I lusted after a CGX 1400, then I wanted an Obsession 22. To expensive though so I thought of DIY, including grinding my own mirrors. Never happened.

My first scope was an Edmund Scientific 6" EQ. Then I picked up a Questar 3.5. Then found a Coulter Odyssey 13.1. I picked up a Konuspot 100 for shooting, but used it more for astronomy.

Time for a Star Partyarty

This guy gets it. Aperture fever baby. Obsession is one really bitchin' scope. The 13" Coulter gets a solid nod from me too. That's a classic light bucket that I'd be proud to own.

Bring that shit up here man, we'll see some stars for sure.

Hehe! THAT could be fun!

I like big buckets and I cannot lie! Here be my 8" Orion XT8 Limited Edition (in red... ohhh la la).... collecting space dust in the corner, looking for a good time! Sign myself and the wifey up for a partaay arty

Astronomy in teh barfs is looking up!

So, yeah. I'm a bucket head too. I love the XT8. Good versatile affordable scope that's not stupid heavy. Fit's easily in almost any car too. I sold mine when I acquired the 10", but I'd have another one in a heartbeat. :thumbup

I like the idea of a BARF Star Party. We're gonna have to kick that around some more. arty

 

[ctwo]

BTW, I like the SkEye app. I was amazed with this tech when it came out. Your device needs to have a magnetometer and accelerometer to track motion (calibrate by moving your phone in a nunchuck motion).

You can hold your phone up to the sky and see the same view on your screen. It tracks like you're taking a photo, but objects are labeled. Attach your phone to your scope for easier finding (pushto objects). This way, you can tell if you're looking at the Andromeda galaxy or if it's just a smudge on the lens.

:thumbup:thumbup

 

[DReg350]

Skyeye looks like a great app too. PC programs like Stellarium and apps like SkySafari and Skyeye have really made locating objects MUCH easier.

I was coached on star hopping by Albert Highe, who is a local legend among Bay Area amateur astronomers. He's written several books on telescope construction too...

Engineering, Design and Construction of Portable Newtonian Telescopes

and

Engineering, Design and Construction of String Telescopes

Star hopping takes focus, discipline, patience and skill. I can do it IF I'm in the right frame of mind, but it doesn't always satisfy my short attention span. Albert's a purist and uses only star charts and a finder. He's amazing. I have fond memories of working with him.

When I had my XT8 I added azimuth setting circles and used that in conjunction with magnetic digital level. Get the rocker-box level and pointed North, fire up Stellarium on a laptop, find an object I wanted to see, Stellarium would give me the azimuth and elevation, rotate the scope to the correct azimuth location, raise the scope to the designated elevation, and in theory I'd be on the object. It worked pretty well. These two links detail what I'm describing much better...

https://parkerxt8.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/added-an-azimuth-setting-circle/
https://xt8dob.wordpress.com/tag/setting-circles/

Another Android app that I really like is Nightshift (current version is 0.14.3). It'll give you a lot of information about your location once you set it. Things like sunrise, sunset, darkness start and end, and Moon rise and set. It'll also give you a bit of information about what's up, like Planets, meteor showers, etc. Finally, if you want, it'll alert you about the sky conditions for your location. Good for "Should I drag the scope out, or stay on the couch tonight?" :laughing

 

[DReg350]

Here's an update...

I finished the cart! It has the stabilizer feet and hand grips installed for that motorcycle feel. I also added a RAM mount on the rocker box to hold the iPad for navigating to objects. I set it up in the garage and shot a quick video...

• It shows the new stabilizer feet
• The Hand Controller and a loose daytime alignment
• The StarSeek WiFi adapter
• The iPad, which is centered on the Sun (I'm in the garage, so I'm not actually pointed at the sun without a filter). When I touch the screen I'm re-centering on Venus. Then I touch GOTO.
• Then you'll see the scope slew over to the location where Venus would be.
• Finally, I give a look at the ram mount.

I've taken it out to the park in front of my house several times now, and it works so well. I've been able to hit objects very reliably; although, light pollution greatly limits what I can see clearly. Still fun. :banana


youtu.be/ewkdm_kQwNM

 

[DReg350]

I've had a chance to wheel the scope out to the park, set it up and use it several times now. I discovered several problems with the trolley design...

1. We welded the stabilizer nuts to the bottom of the tabs. This created a clearance issue in that with stabilizer feet fully retracted it'd bottom out when traversing driveway aprons and sidewalk humps.
2. The nuts were also too short and didn't provide enough thread to really lock the stabilizers in place. The result was a slight "wobble" between the welded nut and the threaded rod connection point. Once the wobble propagated all the way up the tube assembly... I wasn't able to hold an object steady in the eyepiece.
3. The entire scope tried to rock itself off the back of the trolley whenever I tried to pull the trolley up a steep incline. This was a MAJOR safety issue.

So, John and I redesigned some changes to address all three issues. And, now we have Version 1.1...

1. We cut the short nuts off the bottoms of the tabs and re-welded longer threaded rod connector nuts to the top. Solved two problems: created more clearance for the stabilizer feet to retract further, and provided much more thread for a MUCH better connection that eliminated any wobble at the eyepiece. Getting rid of the wobble was a huge win. YAY!
2. We added a clamp to lock the front of the ground board directly to the trolley. Now I can pull it up a hill without the scope trying to rock off the back. Another YAY!

Here's a few pictures of Version 1.1...

 

[Mike95060]

So when is the star party? If you wanted to go all out and do a destination party, this is the most amazing place i have ever seen Stars...

https://www.stardancelodge.com/

High desert makes for great viewing. Full disclosure this is my ex mother in laws property. If you wanna escape humanity for a while, i know of no better place where you can do it and still have indoor plumbing.