UPDATE 2009

Fine Tuned the beast -

- neutrally balanced the scope with inboard weights
- added my old Parks 10 in as a rich field terra firma auxillary scope
- re-did the wheel system (copied a euro big scope design by Erhard Hänssgen - see cruxis site http://www.cruxis.com/scope/scope1100.htm )and eliminated logistics hassle

- re-did the spider with the Swayze design on steroids and neutralized focus for 41mm pan and paracorr. Swayze's design is great, and eliminated torsional pendulum effect of my old wire spider. stars are now points at 400x!

- bought the 41mm pan and paracorr ($$gulp)
- Added Digital Setting Circles (Sky Commander) ($$gulp) works great, way worth it, very competitive with Argo Navis

Went to Table Mountain for 5 days, got the beast in top form

Went to OSP for 5 days, nailed, with help from the ' Commander, the challenge list in first night and had an Fall sky Abel catalog blow out. The more populated clusters (15-30) got 90%+ accurate counts and shape sketches.

Put the beast away on day 5, and had an all night look through a pair of top end big scopes. The optics and the drives on these scopes were really great. The beast's optics proved very competitive to these units (both in 30 inch range). The mods above made the difference.

To Do's:

- Altitude Movement quite stiff at altitudes greater then 45 degrees but manageable and adds wind resistant
- Need to improve mirror cooldown - will add a styrofoam daytime cooler box and smart fans
- Beginning a redesign for classical cassegrain nasmyth focus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasmyth_telescope F6.2 config. ETA 2019
- Beginning a redesign of mount with drive for classical cassegrain mod ETA 2019