Thursday, August 13, 2020

Remaking the Baby Reflector Ring Mount

 I made something that mounted two rings for the 3" reflector, but a bit too close together.  Worse, I had used foam rubber to hold a 114mm diameter tube in 135mm rings (now for sale on cloudynights.com).  It really did not work; they were laying around, so I thought I would try to use them.  

Instead, I bought some 116mm rings, and machined a ring base that fit into the existing ring base to EQ-1 mount adapter, with the rings now 6.000" apart.  The ring base is now held into the adapter by four 8-32 thumbscrews.  Both the adapter and ring base are threaded 8-32, producing a very rigid assembly.  The rings open easily, allowing me to quickly remove the most fragile assembly from the mount.



In retrospect, I should have attached the rings directly to the adapter, instead of two separate ways to take it apart, but the prospect of remaking that adapter (which was very demanding on precision) with a longer superstructure caused me to do it slower and harder than it otherwise would have taken me to do.

This should have been done with a dovetail, but this is a new area for me to learn.

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