New World Datsuns...

Well I cut the truss tubes today and did not have to make new UTA truss mounts connections, I was a little worried that the angle I bored them was for the long tubes, I took 12.5" off them and when put together they are a slightly different angle but all was good, I put it all together and collimated it, I looked outside and there was almost a foot of snow at my front door so I was not going to take it outside, so I moved a large house plant and pointed out the window at the top of a tree, I cut the tubes a 1/4" longer in case of a mistake in my thinking, I did not want to take off too much, well I could not quite make it to focus racked out but I had an extension(tubes are not long enough??), and It came into focus, it was not a sharp image as I was looking thru a double pane window that is as old as the house, I have never had a sharp image looking thru a window, but it worked and I need to try it with a small eyepiece to see if I have a racked in issue, if I do I will I will have to cut more off the tubes.

I had to stop working on this and fix my pond filter issue, the end of the pipe froze up and it tried to empty the pond, by the time I fixed that it was dark and I could not see the tree top anymore so I called it for the day, I will try all my eyepieces tomorrow and figure out if I need to cut more off the truss tubes.

Here is the scope, it is balanced without any counter weights which is great, but I had to use counter weights when I put in the extension and heavy 2" Meade 32mm SWA eyepiece, that one is kinda heavy.





I still need to mount the Telrad which is used to aim the scope, but everything works, it came into focus, all is good.

OK, my last post has something wrong in it, I said I needed to take more off the truss tubes, that was wrong, I cut too much off the tubes and had to use the extension to get the eyepiece farther away from the mirror to come to focus, sometimes I don't think properly or think things work backwards, well I did not want to buy another set of truss tubes so I made the upper tube assembly 35mm(1 3/8") taller, that fixed the issue and put the focus assembly in the middle instead of low in the UTA, it looks better in the middle.



I took it outside after shoveling the snow off the walk and looked at the tree I have been using to see if I can focus thru the front window and it was a crisp detailed view, that part is good.

I had to use counter weights when looking at the top of the tree as the scope was less that 10 degrees from being horizontal, so I made a nice sturdy weight holder, the 2 photos are 6 pounds including the holder.





I asked the telescope forum guys if I could just paint everything flat black in the photo below, it would be a lot easier if I can.



Oh and I added my Telrad which is how I point the scope at what I want to look at.



Have not worked on the U320 truck as it is cold out there in the garage, today has been up to 46 degrees, it has been below freezing for a few days now until today.

I made some progress today, I made a mirror cover to keep the cats off the mirror, I made lock downs so the scope cannot move/tilt or fall off the base when moved, I plan to put wheels permanently on the front so I can tilt the scope/base as one unit using the upper tune assembly to walk it around like it is on a hand truck but the UTA is the handle.

The mirror cover







How I locked the front and back down

















Here is where the wheels will be mounted but I plan to use much smaller wheels.



And here is the scope tonight, it still needs work, I do have to cut some off the truss tubes now, I will decide how much after I have more than 2 minutes looking at a star or the Moon, one eyepiece worked properly, the rest of them need to be closer to the primary mirror and that means making the truss tubes shorter an eighth inch at a time till I find the sweet spot.

I made it movable today(easily movable), $15.00 for wheels and I had everything else.

I drilled the end of the axle and threaded it for a stud, I have a wingnut holding the tire on now but I will likely buy a knob for it, I can remove the whole axle by removing that wingnut.



These 2 bolts hold the bracket on the mirror/side bearing frame





I still need to trim that extra axle off.



These are of it outside, you can see how I can just roll it around.

A foggy looking Moon came out just long enough for me to see if all my eyepieces worked and they do, I didn't try the barlows yet as by the time I got thru checking all my eyepieces to make sure they worked properly it had started to lightly rain, so my truss tubes are the right length now, I took off 3/4" total off the truss tubes after lengthening the UTA 1 3/8", I would never have guessed I had it within 5/8" when I thought I was way more off/wrong.

I will likely wait for a good night of viewing to check the scope out thoroughly with barlow lenses the way I use them, then I will need to tear it apart to paint everything flat black that I can see in the reflection of the mirror and all the wood left will be sealed/stained, then I can put it back together then all I will need is a curtain to go around the truss tubes to block any stray light reflections from the primary mirror.

It was awesome that it cleared just long enough for me to check the scope out, that was not the forecast for tonight.

Well it is all painted black on the inside and the truss tubes have shrink wrap on them, right now all I need is to stain the outside and a shroud/curtain but I will wait on both till I know this thing works properly.

I guess it has been a while since I posted about the telescope, I have used it around 4 tomes now, this is how I wheel it around





And here it is, it works alright, about as good as my Starsplitter at less than half the weight.







I am going to have it measured for a shroud tomorrow, I need to buy a long zipper, a couple of small draw ropes, and enough black ripstop nylon to cover the truss tubes from the lower ring on the UTA to the lower truss tube connections.

A lot has happened since I last posted to this thread, about a week ago I got a renewal notice for my drivers license, well my birthday is in September so I thought that was really early notice, well Saturday I looked at the renewal and it said I was supposed to have renewed September of 2020, the weird thing was it also said it this was returned after December 2020 I would have to renew in person as the payment coupon was no longer good, I only received the notice a week ago, I tried to renew online but they wanted my SS#, I have never typed in my SS# on my computer ever that I recall and I am not going to now, so I went to the licensing place and they said I needed an appointment, so I went back home and tried to get an appointment, they want my SS# for an appointment also, so I went back as a walk in as anyone with an appointment gets right in and all the walk ins have to wait for an opening, it took a half hour as I was second in line after lunch, I renewed without giving them my SS#.(insert face palm here)

I tried to do this Saturday and they were closed, on the way there as I was riding my bike I tried to go up onto the sidewalk at the USPS place and my rear wheel would not go up the curb in the entrance to the USPS mail boxes, I went down hard, both legs, both elbows, and my jaw hit the pavement, this happened right in front of someone driving in to drop off their mail, I did not get up right away as I kinda hurt, I was bleeding what looked like out of my nose, but it turned out that that what had happened is my teeth almost went all the way through my upper lip near my nose and that is what was bleeding, I gritted my teeth and my jaw did not feel broken but my right ear felt weird, in the end nothing was broken that I know of, well on my way to the DOL this morning on my bike the same freaking thing happened except I went to a different entrance before going up onto the sidewalk, the lip on this one was not as high and the rear wheel finally went up over it before I went down, I could hardly believe it, I almost went down again, my ear still feels weird when I eat something.

I bought another telescope Sunday, this one is replacing my 10" telescope that I mentioned I was not happy with as it was not much better than the 6" scope, this one is closer to my Starsplitter when looking thru the eyepiece, it is a little beat up, but it has a $400.00 focuser on it and I paid $595.00 for the whole scope, it is a 12" Zhummel F/5 which has a 1500mm focal length, my Starsplitter has around a 1650mm focal length, the 10" and 6" had 1250mm and 1200mm focal lengths so everything was smaller using the same eyepiece, but I only looked at some fir cones 2 blocks away so far, but what I seen I was happy with unlike them other 2 scopes.





It is pretty big and I am going to need to take it apart and knock a few dents out, but I don't see an issue with doing that, the metal tube should want to go back to its normal shape with a little encouragement, I am going to sell the 10" now.

Been interesting watching this progress

Thankyou Blue

I received the zipper today for the 16" telescopes shroud and made the call to the sewing gal but she did not answer, I left a message, if she don't call me back I will look for another person to make it for me.

I will likely use the 16" scope the most until the planets come back, then I will likely use the 14.5" scope for them in my back yard, I plan on taking the 16" scope to dark sites to really see the sky since it is so light and easy to put together, I cannot see most things in the city with any scope except planets and the Moon, too much light pollution and heat rising from houses including mine, but it needs to be a lot warmer at night than it is now.

Dammit Wayno, be careful. Glad you’re not hurt too bad.

That mount on the black scope a few posts ago fell apart, it was so heavy, so I built another one, I copied it exactly except where the handle was, it weighs less than half what the one that fell apart weighed, so much easier to move it around, I was using a hand truck to move it.





I still need to seal the Birch plywood before it gets wet, it is not the very expensive Birch that high end scope manufacturers use, it is 5 ply while the expensive stuff is over 10 ply.

Geez, man! Be careful.

I sealed the base today, I am very happy how it turned out, and it is less than half the weight.

I guess I forgot to take a photo of the scope with its new base.



This base is so much lighter that it is easy to move but the scope(OTA) is quite large, I can move it but it would be nice to roll around with a hand truck or maybe I will think of something else.

I bought another mirror for my 16" scope for reasons I don't really want to talk about, the mirror in it works just fine, but it has some damage, this mirror is a more traditional mirror, one solid piece of glass instead of 2 pieces fused together, I believe I can change out the mirrors and raise the clips and use it without modification of the scope, but I likely will need to use an extension in the focuser, what is in it now is a F/4.42, this new mirror is a F/4.5 with about a 30mm difference in focal length, the extension is 35mm and the new mirror is 7mm taller, I am hoping it will work with the extension so I can use which ever mirror I want to use.

The garden is ready for planting stuff now.



I did not hook up the water yet to the automatic water system, it will be a while before it needs that but it is ready.

I want to get stuff ready like watermelon plants, I want decent sized watermelons to eat this year, they were planted too late last year and that wind storm did not help them either blowing their vines all over the place, it destroyed the pumpkin plant leaves but I will not be planting pumpkins this year, I will plant the watermelon plants(2 different types) on the front edge and route the vines out over the grass, I don't water the grass, I am thinking maybe I should just kill the grass/weeds, I will figure that out later, I will likely plant the cucumbers on the front edge also.

I received these L/Z head gaskets today, they are 92mm across the cylinder holes, they will work perfect for me as I have Z24 pistons in my Z22 blocks I use to make my LZ23 engines, I hate making head gaskets out of Z24 gaskets as I always worry about how much of the gasket sticks to my hand drilling the extra holes in them to make them work, I only paid $25.00 each plus the $15.00 shipping, it takes a long time to make one with a dremel.



Starting to get some work again since the temps have warmed up, not working on much around here except in the gardens pulling weeds, but I did find the "Beehive" open cluster which really is nothing more than a lot of stars in one place, they are kinda boring except for the challenge finding them, I hope Saturn and Jupiter get here soon(couple months) so I have something to look at as I cannot see much in town except planets and the Moon, well except for open clusters and double stars which are kinda...................

I mostly worked on the garden today in one way or another, I bought the 4 tomato plants I buy every year, I am hoping that the beefsteak I bought this time is not a cherry beefsteak like last years plant, I bought lettuce(6 plants), broccoli(6 plants), and two blueberry plants for the front.

Here is the Broccoli, I have not piped it yet.



Here are the tomatoes and the head lettuce between them.



The lettuce will not last long and I have already started Romaine lettuce from seed and will plant that as soon as they are large enough to transplant, they have not sprouted yet, they will be what I eat after the head lettuce is gone, but the Watermelons have started sprouting.



This last photo is of a row of beans I planted on the left next to the wall, and 4 rows of corn I planted, two rows of yellow(golden bantam) and 2 rows of white corn(Stowells Evergreen White) of which both are Heirloom type where I can use the seeds off one ear for net years crop.



I went 4 different places and was unable to find a Cucumber plant of any kind, I need to plant that when they come in, no hurry I bought last years plant in July and it grew like the worst weed ever(I thought it was a watermelon plant), I did buy some carrot seeds but have not decided where to plant them yet along with the pea seeds I saved from last year, I still have lots of room.

OK, I piped the Broccoli although I might try again.



This row is peas and two types of carrots, I am not sure if I am going to put it on automatic watering.



This is what the garden looks like on 4/12/21.

Wow , that’s some work wayno