Orion Optics primary mirror support replacement

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi All,

For those of you who we're at the summer deep sky cam you would remember me complaining big time about the problems of collimating and keeping in collimation my 10" F6.3 OO scope.

For those of you who looked through this scope at the moon and Jupiter its was fantastic, we pushed the detail on the moon using a 4x2" Televue Barlow and 20mm Teleview eyepiece to about 640x with no real issues, when collimated and at lower magnifications using a wide angle eyepiece at prime it was great.

So I had a couple of choices: -

   1 - Sell it and get a 10" SCT, this would cost about £2,000
        and it probably would not perform any better

   2 -Do some upgrading and cure the issues with the scope.  

So I've finally opted for the later option.  

Firstly I have decided to replace the primary holder, the old one was a three point holder, which moved the primary as the scope moved on the mount.

I decided to buy a new OO 9 primary support with fan installed for £129 inc carriage, I ordered it yesterday, it arrived today

If you look below you will see the old support (left) and new (right), please note on the right the new one it taller (just) and also has two screw positions to hold it onto the telescope tube, I decided to mount the primary as far in as possible because the in-travel on my scope if not quite enough for my likings, but I can also drop it down if needed.



Ok second issue with the scope if that the old primary holder blocked the whole tube at the mirror cell end, however, by fitting the new one it has a great benefit.  There is now just over half an inch around the mirror and also a fan to suck air from the back of the primary, this will help the scopes thermal cooling, the image below shows the new secondary fitted, if you look closely you will see 1/8th, this is the wavefront of the mirror



Now the next thing is a crayford 1:10 ratio focuser with 2" compression rings, I'm ordering a generic brand for £79, I'm also waiting for a price for rotating rings.   I'll post these changes when done.

This should mean that the scope will be fully tweaked and ready to do some serious imaging, watch this space.  All I will need now is to collimate it and get a planet to turn up with clear skies.
 The hard bit.


Chris



P.S. The upgrade took 1:15 mins.

[JohnP]

So what focusser did you go for in the end... did you go for the Moonlite...?

New holder looks good -  I'm looking forward to seeing the first images.

John

[Mike]

Looking good Chris. I can't wait to see the planetary stuff you do with that baby !