New World Datsuns...

Early last night I had tried a configuration that was too tall, later I went out there and looked at it for a while and today after a job I went with this.








I did this just in time, I put my plants inside because it was starting to rain so hard I thought they might drowned.



I am slightly too tall to stand upright inside, I might shovel out a few inches to fix that issue, but right now I am going to heal from lifting all that heavy glass, I only shattered one piece and have an extra section I did not use.

That's pretty crafty.

I agree. I’ve tried to get my father in law to do one like that but he continues to use one wrapped in sheet plastic.

I just have so much stuff around here that I save and never throw away, when I figured out/remembered the old garage door wood pieces had that groove in it the same thickness as the glass I thought that was a good way to use it, all but the two 6" pieces were used, I burned the scraps last night.

Unfortunately I still have a lot of glass, enough to likely make a very large greenhouse which is not going to happen.

I'm always impressed you get these things done by yourself. Lots of you projects look like two-man jobs to me.

As time goes by it is getting harder to do things.

I agree with Jess, I don’t know if I would attempt half the stuff you get done.

And I cannot do what you did in your house Tater, I cannot do quality work like that.

Taterhead wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:16 am I agree with Jess, I don’t know if I would attempt half the stuff you get done.

As I likely mentioned already(maybe not here), I was going to do the primary mirror lowering mod I did to my other 16" dob, this one turned out nice, I will need to cut the truss tubes now, I expect I should have done more measuring before I started but it is too late now, I will figure it out.

Where the dirt from my hands is on the side bearings near the collimation knobs is going to get a significant hole so I can adjust the knob from the outside instead of reaching down in there



Random photos





The new position for the axle while observing, I did not make a fancy multipurpose bracket this time, the rear collimation knob clears the truss tube mounts and the axle in the counterweight position



This mirror lowering mod turned out way better than the first one, this one is smooth, but I have not collimated it yet as the truss tubes are not the right length yet, I can adjust it so the primary mirror cell/holder drags on the bottom, and if I make one small mod I can likely get it another 1/2" lower, but I will get it done and see where the focuser height is, if I do it right to the ragged edge and cut the truss tubes too short I have a 1/2" to work with, I will likely collimate it with the mirror high to give me more room for a mistake, I can raise it maybe an inch or slightly more. measure ten times, cut once.

I used this modified 16" telescope/dob(the one I made early 2021) last night with the 20" Hubble Optics beside it, I like the new eyepiece height a lot in the 16", they both were about the same view wise, the only eyepiece that did not work in both scopes/dobs was the 10mm Ethos($540.00 used eyepiece-like new), it was just slightly too much power for the 16", but the views were good for what the conditions were supposed to be.

I only compared them to each other on two objects, an open cluster(the Beehive) and M13(globular cluster), I did use the 16" to look at M3(globular cluster) and M94(Galaxy) as it is easier to use than the 20" with motors that move it around, I am thinking about disconnecting both the drives, one can be neutralized with a lever, the other I think the cable needs to be removed, but I am not there yet, maybe I will get used to it if I give it enough time, it was not easy for me to find things with the 14.5" Starsplitter at first, but after a while I got used to it, it is just harder for me to find things using buttons that sometimes I hit the wrong button and get lost and have to start over, to put it in perspective, it takes me a minute or less to find the beehive in the 16", it took likely 5 minutes using the 20" with its button drives.

The only issue might be altitude balance with the cable drive removed, but they sell this dob without the GOTO option, that is a $1995.00 option, not everyone wants to have that option, maybe that is why a member has asked me if my scope wiggles in the wind.

I have done a lot to the 20" dob since the last time I mentioned it, it used to look like this.



It now looks like this, I put a new UTA(upper tube assembly) on it as the secondary mirror was right out in the open for dew to get on it, for stray light to hit it.



The altitude drive barrel looks like this.



Here is a closer photo without the wire on it, that barrel needs to be grooved/fine threaded as the wire wanders all over the barrel and it sometimes over laps and shreds itself trying to get out from under the wire that over lapped it, I took it off and am going to use this without the drives for now as it needs a new wire anyway.



I also re-did the way it is collimated, the way it was sucked, it had these weeny springs and I had 2 of them clamped down tight, it would take an hour to get it collimated sometimes, it also had a sling instead of wiffle trees, I noticed that the collimation would change as I tilted the scope up, so I made a wiffle tree of sorts, collimation does not change anymore.

Here is what the spring looked like when I got it.



Here they all are removed, they look like springs cut in half.



Here is a better one that did not work.



And here is what I ended up using, I started from scratch and made my own system using Datsun head valve springs, it is way better now and they work great, all my dobs have these except for the small ones.







This is the wiffle tree assemblies I made for now until I think of something better, it is a pad and not a wheel, and it only holds the lower plate, I am hoping this works, otherwise I will likely have to start over again, this is not a falling domino effect, but close enough to worry me.









I have been doing some drilling and as hard as I tried metal shavings must have got into the rotational bearing, so I removed it.



You can see in the photo below there is a gap.



How I had to do this is interesting to me, there is a plug on the out side, I took it out and held the bearing over a container, and slowly spun the inside section and the bearings started falling into the container, there were 200 to 300 bearings, once I had the two sections apart without loosing any bearings I cleaned both races, then I cleaned the bearings, once that was done I put the two sections in position and started dropping bearings into the plug hole one at a time, it took a while but I finally got them all back in there and it turned smoothly again, but I wonder if they should be greased, the issue I see is that grease attracts dirt, and there is a gap, my garden is full of dirt and I only water the plants, all the rest of the dirt becomes dust that blows around.
Have any of you seen a seal for this type of Lazy Susan bearing, the outside section turns while the inside has legs that sit on the ground, it makes a lot of metal noise when spun fast, but I don't move it like that when observing, and the hand controller has been deleted for now, I will be using it like my other dobs now, I have it balanced.

I moved the Telrad to a better position where it will not hit stuff, not sure if this is the right spot yet, I hit it and it popped off and hit the shed floor, that is how things get broken, I also made a new set of counterweights that do not need to be removed until I put the dob away, I made brackets that they point out at an angle and do not hit the ground except for the chains and bag of a heavy material which I think is lead.

I made wiffle tree assemblies and installed them, I had to notch the mirror base frame to clearance the ends.















I also beefed up the wiffle tree mounts, they were not that easy to bend but it is a big mirror.



I have done nothing today with the telescopes, taking a break.

I have seen those “lazy susan” type bearings. They were on the bottom of rotating tile displays where I work. I kept 2 of f them for years when we got rid of the displays but never figured out anything to use them for so they ended up in scrap metal.

I used this 20" dob last night(not tonight) along with the 16" F/4.42 dob, but I took the 20" out kinda late and conditions were not that good, not sure if the mirror was warm, or if the fancy double roller wiffle trees I made made the mirror worse, it seemed better with the single wiffle tree with pads, I will wait until I can use it when the mirror is cool and the conditions are better, if I still have issues I might put it back.

I also disabled the hand controller/motors and used it manually, it was much easier to use.

I also am not all that happy with the 22mm Nagler Type 4 I bought, I can see thru it easy enough, but I have to keep my eye centered otherwise it blacks out, I do not like that.

I forgot, I took photos of my Strawberry plants, they have a lot of Strawberry starts/flowers although the photos do not show all the strawberry starts, I hope they all become Strawberries as I have not seen any bees lately, I like strawberries a lot, the Strawberries in stores are crap tasting and do not even smell like Strawberries, Oranges also do not smell like Oranges, they taste like crap also and the only reason they can call them Oranges is because they picked them green and painted them Orange, so they are oranges.











I planted all my tomato plants/cucumbers over the last couple days, it finally warmed up a little at night, my neighbors lost a lot of their plants because they planted too early.

Strawberry patches are impressive! I tried growing them at my place the first 2 years and had horrible results. Not sure what the issue was. Maybe they didn't like my soil, but more likely something I was doing wrong.

Nice Wayno. We didn’t do any strawberries this year.

We only did a few plants each of cucumber, squash, chives, habanero & jalapeño peppers, and tomatoes. And we still have the blueberry bush and blackberry vine.

All of our stuff is very small amounts, nothing like what you do.

DRIVEN wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 5:26 am Strawberry patches are impressive! I tried growing them at my place the first 2 years and had horrible results. Not sure what the issue was. Maybe they didn't like my soil, but more likely something I was doing wrong.

It takes about 3 years to get good results, 2 years gets me a few strawberries, but the first photo is of two rows that combined themselves into one fat row that is 3 years old now, my other rows I did not take specific photos of are 2 years old, yes they have some flowers/strawberry starts but nothing like the 3 year old rows, maybe you did not give them enough time, or maybe they don't get enough water, mine do not do well without a lot of water.

I brought the 20" into the house this evening, it has had these spikes on stars that drove me crazy, it was so bad it got buried behind the 16" telescopes, the spikes started when the scope would not hold collimation with the sling it had, so I made the whiffle trees and that is what caused the spikes, stress on the primary mirror, just supporting the back plate made it better but still drove me crazy, so I brought it in, found the sling, stepped on the center and pulled up to see how much it stretched, it did not stretch at all, so I looked at the Velcro on the sling, it was held on because it has a sticky side, it had moved a little, but I was unwilling to pull it off and center it again as it might not have stuck anymore, so I installed it and took a lot of care sticking the Velcro to the Velcro stuck on the mirror plates, I adjusted it to where the primary Mirror was exactly where it was with the whiffle trees, when I put the laser in the focuser and turned it on it was almost centered, but before I did anything I tilted the OTA(optical tube assembly) from zenith to around 20 degrees and it stayed in the same spot, so I collimated it and used it tonight, everything seems alright and almost all the spikes were gone.

So, it appears I did not have the sling installed properly before, but I would not change anything I did as this is how I learn things, this telescope is at the front of the line again, I looked at M13, M5, M3, the Ring Nebula(could barely see it), and M94(Galaxy), I could not really resolve the Globular Clusters into single stars, when I tried using my 14mm eyepiece things got very dark in the eyepiece, and this was because of below average seeing and poor transparency, I knew this before setting up the telescope but I wanted to see if what I did was the right direction, I believe it was.

I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it or not (visible here in Bama) but on the 24th pre-dawn, all 5 of the naked-eye planets will be aligned.