From: "Suzy Jackson" 
To: 
Reply-To: "Suzy Jackson" 


Hi Mark,

Ronald Ravneberg did a neat telescope, called "A scope like
Alice" which sounds like it would fit your requirements fairly
closely.  It uses a pair of reasonably large diameter truss tubes parallel
with the scope axis, mounted to the corners of the mirror box.  A flat
board is then used as a mount for the secondary and focuser.  If you work
it all out carefully, you can get the focuser board to sit inside the
mirror box, which then turns 90 degrees and sits inside the alt cradle, so
it's all nice and compact for travel.

My own take on the design (a 150mm f/5) is shown at
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/Suzy.Jackson/telescope.html  I scaled
Ronalds telescope down a tad, based on bits I had to hand, and made
aluminium clamp pieces for the truss tubes to sit in, to improve
collimation repeatability and ensure the structure doesn't flex about the
truss mounts. Mine uses 25mm diameter truss tubes, and doesn't suffer from
any noticeable wobble, despite not being braced in one dimension.

Regards,

Suzy

-+-
Suzy Jackson        suzyj{at}bigpond.com        http://www.suzyj.net

--- BBBS/NT v4.00 MP