Locking the C-14 mirror

Forums Imaging C14 mirror flop Locking the C-14 mirror

#582702
David Arditti
Participant

The bolts that are supplied with the telescope are about 2″ long, smooth-shanked and threaded with a ¼” Whitworth thread in the top ½”.

They work by the thread engaging with the mirror cell while the unthreaded section passes through the hole in the back of the scope and the knob clamps tight. Owing the varying mirror position at different focus points, I am not sure if they would succeed in in locking the mirror at any point in its focus range, or not.

Assuming they do, and assuming you are using one optical configuration with camera at a fixed distance out in a Crayford or similar focuser, I don’t see why you should not lock the mirror in position with these screws after you have established the approximate focus point for the mirror, with the Crayford in the middle of its range, to give a bit of temperature compensation around that point. However, I have not tried this. I tend to do my critical work around the same part of the sky, the meridian, so the collimation does not change much.