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Posts Made By: Ken Landaiche

August 7, 2007 06:08 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Aligning a mirror cell onto a mirror

Posted By Ken Landaiche
I have been building a 13.1" Albert Highe Dob (something like http://pw2.netcom.com/~ahighe/12_5ultra.html) and am nearing the stage of gluing the mirror cell to the back of the mirror.

Can you offer some hints and ideas for gluing and aligning the cell as I set it down on the mirror? I have thought of drawing pencil lines on the back of the mirror. But they would get visibly sealed under the silicone glue. And I like those beautiful clear mirror backs I see in photos of other peoples' scopes.

A jig? A template? Laser alignment? Hope for the best?

Many thanks.

Ken Landaiche

November 21, 2007 11:56 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Rebuilding a battery pack

Posted By Ken Landaiche
Do any of you have experience rebuilding a rechargeable battery pack? I remember reading about testing the cells and replacing bad ones. But I can't find the post here anymore. Many thanks for any leads to the recipe.

November 28, 2007 11:55 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Telrad flasher schematic

Posted By Ken Landaiche
I have looked for the article "A Pulsating Telrad Finder" on S&T 's site. But they only have the citation for it: John A Nevelus; Sky & Telescope; Dec 1988; 694; not the actual article.

Can anyone tell me what circuit was described? Send me a schematic?

Many thanks.

March 21, 2008 07:59 PM Forum: Telescope Making

A good design for a DIY observing chair?

Posted By Ken Landaiche
The previous thread got me wondering what you think is a good design.

Thanks, observers.

Ken

August 4, 2009 05:56 PM Forum: Eyepieces

A neutral density or polarizer filter?

Posted By Ken Landaiche
The moon is way too bright for me in my 13" scope. This weekend I tried a friend's Lumicon ND 13%. That helped a lot, but I could still drop the light a bit. Looking on the Anacortes web site, I saw variable polarizing filters. So I wonder, should I get a couple of ND filters, or a variable polarizing filter to make the moon more comfortable to view?

August 9, 2007 04:18 PM Forum: Telescope Making

Aligning a mirror cell onto a mirror

Posted By Ken Landaiche
OK, it looks like the consensus is to mark the mirror back, eyeball the placement of the mirror cell, and definitely wait that 24 hours so I don't disturb the cure process. wink

With all of the attention we pay to collimating a scope, and since no mirror cell I have seen has lateral adjustment, I thought gluing the cell to the mirror would take a lot more precision than this. I suppose that any slop introduced at this stage simply moves the optical axis slightly. And that can be compensated by the normal collimation process.

Many thanks for the input. Now I know I can do it! grin

November 22, 2007 12:37 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

What Grease and Goo Is Best?

Posted By Ken Landaiche
I looked into this a while back when I wanted to remove the shipping glue used on my mount. Quite a few mount rebuilders liked SuperLub. I tried it and it definitely works better than the stuff the factory used smile

March 24, 2008 06:10 PM Forum: Telescope Making

A good design for a DIY observing chair?

Posted By Ken Landaiche
Thanks gents. I like that catsperch. I might try to clone it (without using any embryonic stem cells, of course.)

August 5, 2009 03:06 PM Forum: Eyepieces

A neutral density or polarizer filter?

Posted By Ken Landaiche
Thanks, everyone for your help. I'll get the variable polarizer.

The advice of several of you to keep lights on made me laugh a bit. That makes complete sense, while going against everything else I'd expect for astronomy.

March 3, 2010 01:01 AM Forum: Telescope Making

Tube counterweight set

Posted By Ken Landaiche
I have an Orion counterweight on a dovetail rail. Someone had added it to my Coulter Dob (before I had it). So when I changed it to an open tube frame, I transferred the sliding counterweight to one of the tubes. It works fine.

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