From: "Jack Schmidling" 
To: 
Reply-To: "Jack Schmidling" 


From: "Scott Berfield" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 10:52 AM Subject: ATM Focusers


>I am fabricating my
own Carbon tube/truss, and am deciding between building my own
spider/diagonal mount or going with Protostar....

Don't know what a Protostar is but I have yet to see a commercial diagonal
holder I liked.   Take a look at my design.  I have made a half dozen of
these and just made another a few days ago.  They work and solve all the
problems of the commercial ones.  If you have access to machines, I would
not even consider buying what is out there.
http://schmidling.netfirms.com/diag.htm I made a change since posting this
to allow rotating the diagonal without having to loosen nuts.  Just turn it
and leave it.

Here is my take on focusers.  After expending a great deal of effort and
some money I decided this was one thing beyond my skills to improve on what
is out there.

I bought several JMI's and did not like them much for a number of reason. 
A friend recently bought a motorized version and it seems like the motor
solves many of the problems of the plain Jane version.  However, the fact
that the motor can not be disengaged for quick gross adjustments, is a real
bum design.

You did not mention the Starlight "Feather Touch" and this is
what I ended up with and aside from a few fiixable details, it is a
wonderful piece of work.

My only gripe with these folks is that in spite of a plea on their web page
and literature  that comments are welcome, I got paranoid abuse when I made
a few suggestion to improve it.   I made the improvements myself and would
be happy to pass them on.

I do not know and have been meaning to ask, if they have a motor system for
it but I did not care at the time I bought it.

Van Slyke is a different problem.  I had a bad experience with him which he
finally made good on (sort of) after much bitching and threatening.  The
place is an enigma and he seems to have spent a lot on prototypes and
pretty pictures but users of his stuff are hard to find.

Other than that..... I vote for Feather Touch.

js

PHOTO OF THE WEEK http://schmidling.netfirms.com/weekly.htm HOME:
Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Sausage, Videos http://schmidling.netfirms.com

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-4