Chuck, My friend Jim has a 25" with a ServoCat. It works great. He had a 0.0 warp rate last night. He was always dead on target. Last night we saw the central star of the ring nebula at 700X with no problems. Debbie

From: Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> Date: 2005/08/30 Tue PM 03:23:29 MDT To: Utah-Astro <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Large equatorial: soliciting ideas

Is anyone currently using a large, portable, equatorially-mounted Newtonian? Or has in the past?

I am finally designing a telescope for a 17.5" mirror I've had for almost 20 years, will be building a 12.5" prototype first to test some ideas. Now that I can design in 3D using Solidworks on the computer (and my wife got a new job, hurrah!), I'm ready to tackle the project without having to build a "me too" design- what some of us call "S.O.S." (I'll tell you off-list...) I've had my fill of Dobsonians (nothing against them, but it's time for me to move on) and want to go the split-ring route, with some variations, to facilitate imaging without resorting to field de-rotators, odd, multi-axis mounts, or digitally controlled stepper motors.

I'm not interested in equatorial platforms, but please relate your thoughts if to do with large, portable Newtonians on true equatorials. Say, 12.5" and up. Likes, dislikes, engineering ideas, wish list items.

Thanks!

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