Ad Astra Observatory

Took the scope out for another spin last night. I even fired up the Gemini and watched it swing that big scope around. Very cool.

The results of my testing: there’s definitely a flexure problem.

This is not a “final product” yet, so bugs are expected. Some glue and fender washers will probably fix this.

I’m currently depending a lot on a perpendicular connection directly between an aluminum tube and a plywood face. Changing that to a compression load and spreading that load out over a big steel washer

will probably fix it. There are a couple of places where I have wood-to-wood contact, but no glue in place. Gluing those will strengthen those joints.

Things look pretty at the eyepiece, but I can’t trust the GOTO or the finder/main alignment at the moment, since the finder is off by 30′ or more depending on where in the sky the scope is pointed. Thus, finding objects at the eyepiece is more a matter of luck than design.

More tweaks, more testing. The testing is going very well.

One thing that I’ve motice is that Trixie is a *big* object. I have to duck a lot as the Gemini moves things around. I didn’t run into any wall-touching problems. But there are points in the sky that I’ll have to watch carefully.

This is fun.