Cape Ealing

Loaded with binoculars and mirror:

Lessons learned

1. Need to have way of turning the axes without stepper motors (sometimes its nice to have no motors)

2. Need to have wider (completely round base) that can easily be lifted. thinking a sort of doughnut. ie diameter that goes round edge of bino end of mount with width of say 4 cm, and 3 spurs going out (each with spirit levels)

3. The mount must be LEVEL. I think that this means that the bottom plate must be level. I think that if it’s got 3 arms (which can be seen when the top plate is on it) then each of them needs a spirit level on it.

4. Need to have a way of reading the spirit levels wherever mount is (because it’s hard to move once steppers are wired up and worm gears are in place).

5. Need to have way of measuring (perhaps on a separately wired lighting) where the two axes are. SO, the alt and az need to have a way of measuring them (like in v 1.0) without the motor being on.

6. Need to be able to secure the binos (ie at the top) in a way that prevents them being moved. that might mean that the current plate that holds the binos has another plate on top of it. that will also provide (on its side) then a place for the LCD screen.

7. The centre of gravity also needs to be closer to the mirror (and further from the binos). the centre of gravity needs to be the centre of the bottom plate (to help when it’s on a tripod). this will also mean that the bottom plate can be as small as necessary. this might affect the shape of the holder for the binos. ive thought about a sin wave or something else. needs to be elegant. also needs to hide the stepper motor.

8. Startup should: 1. find out where 50 degrees is. 2. get either gps or pc to say where north star is. 3. find it. 4. start from there.

In summary, the critical things I’ve learnt are: i. the mount must be level from the start – the rest is completely useless if not level at the outset. ii it must be easy to pick up and move around once the binos are on. iii it must be able to be put on a tripod (I think that perhaps extra bottom plate will be necessary for tripod adaptor). iii. must be able to use in non-motorised mode (with view of alt and az scale).

Ben