[charliezap]

Sorry that it took me awhile to give the answer.Anyway Ex Finn on this forum had it right on the money.It's a manual tracking mount for taking time exposures of celestial objects.----Align the North star through the site tube--set your camera to where you want shoot in the sky---open shutter for however long you want---turn drive screw handle as best you can to 1rpm(practice first) and record your image.It does work well. the pic that you see is 1 minute shot of the belt in ORION.Being only 10miles outside of Boston i have a ton of light polution but the pic didn't come out too bad considering.with a good location you should get some nice pics.--My wife says it just collects dust now and i should get rid of it.Maybe i might if someone really wanted it.i would like to see what this can do in an area with a totally dark night sky. The night pic was taken with a Miranda slr with a Takumar 135mm preset lens. The exposure was a minute or so 800ISO.The drive scew that opens the hinge is calibrated to give you 1/4 deg every one turn per minute. this will put the sky object in the viewfinder as the earth rotates.CHARLIEZAP

Attached Images

   

That's a brilliant piece of equipment you have made, it would be a shame to get rid of it but I bet there are a few on this forum who would love to have it or try it out even.

[wildlifephotog]

WOW! That is one slick barndoor tracker. I can visualize a 1 rpm motor to drive the threaded rod.

[rparmar]

I just wanted to bring your attention to my avatar.

Soul brothers?

[Classvino]

WOW! That is one slick barndoor tracker. I can visualize a 1 rpm motor to drive the threaded rod.

Find an old electric clock motor... (make sure it is one that has a second hand)

[charliezap]

I think that Confucius said that "great avatars think alike" or maybe it was the great MLK.That's why we could be soul brothers.My shot was lucky--i think that it was with my first pentax k10d with the quantaray 70-300 lens.

[charliezap]

Half the fun is doing it manually. It doesn't take much practice to turn the screw at 1rpm to get good results.My grand son goes to Lawrence Academy in Groton Ma and when he is a senior he can take astronomy.I might save it for him so that he can use it for a class project. Charliezap

[charliezap]

That's a brilliant piece of equipment you have made, it would be a shame to get rid of it but I bet there are a few on this forum who would love to have it or try it out even.

It's easy to make something like this when you work in Tool&Die General Electric Co Lynn Ma where we make the jet engines that supply the Navy and "friendly countries" with the jet engines that go into the FA-18 E/F fighters and attack helicopters.You wouldn't believe how many moving parts go into an engine.When i fly i give thanks to the assemblers who make any engines.I'm always aware of strange noises from the engines but so far nothing has given me a "white knuckle flight"The Lynn Ma plant is very impressive---Charliezap

[Rustyoldbug]

That is really cool - I have been using a piggy back bracket with a K1000 on top of my Celsetron (C8-SGT XLT) which has their GT tracking mount. I drag a cheap thrift store tripod with me too and mount a 2nd K1000 for doing trails.

Maybe we could work out a couple week loan when we do our next Joshua Tree trip (probably not until this fall. I can cough up some sort of collateral I'm sure...)

[chalion]

Whoops, I didn't see this thread here. I just posted my answer on the other thread, lol.