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Moving on to the mount. Here we see the RA axis before restoration, with the rusty base-plate. The polar-alignment is
achieved by moving the whole telescope with big bolts on the base plate. Currently, we are not sure how accurately the
mount is polar aligned, but it is certainly adequate for visual observations. We will shortly be using the drift-method to improve the polar alignment (armed with big spanners and hammers for those delicate adjustments!).
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There are three drive motors, all AC synchronous working at 240V. One drives the main gear for siderial motion, the other two are slewing motors for RA and Dec, controllable by a hand-box.
One project already underway is to interface my SBIG ST-4 autoguider to these drives. The ST-4 has relay outputs that normally control 12V DC control systems. I have built a relay interface box to allow the ST-4 to switch the 240V AC motors.
We have no idea if this will work, as it is not known yet if the slewing motors slew at a speed that the ST-4 can handle - only time will tell.
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Click on any of the images below to see a larger version
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