Around Waynos house

[wayno]

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.

[wayno]

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.

[wayno]

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.

[wayno]

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.

[wayno]

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.

[wayno]

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.