C14 Mirror Modification Mod

[Radar 356]

I am thinking about tinkering with death. Actually, its not that bad, but I'm thinking about pulling apart my C14, and building some type of bracket that holds and fixes the primary mirror in position permanently, getting rid of the in built focusing system and simply using a crayford style focuser to handle focusing. I think this would remove any mirror flop. At the moment, I don't get much mirror flop, but when I do its enough to ruin collimation, ruin an accurate computer pointing model and if it happens during an exposure can cause poor stars and the edges of subs to all be different. 

I know the mirror already has screw holes in the back of it, I already have flop stoppers which actually work okay, but it could be better. Not sure if anyone has any comments or suggestions about this. I don't envision the mod would be overwhelming difficult. 

Ray

[wingeing Pom 434]

But then of course you couldn't use a Hyperstar

Greg

 

[wingeing Pom 434]

There's quite a number of articles out there (I looked into this years ago) about how to either clamp the mirror - or better still - provide a bit of stiction between the outer edge of the mirror and the OTA.  With the stiction method you can focus and it doesn't tend to flop.

Greg

 

[Astro_Pool 32]

Set the mirror so that your rear SCT addon secondary focuser is halfway, then you have travel both ways. 

Dave

[Radar 356]

Cheers Greg. Cheers Dave. I got the exact same advice from FB the other day. I hadn't thought of it. I'll try and do this early next week and document my results. 

Ray