steppermotor focus

[Guest ivan]

I am considering fitting stepper motor focus unit to my 130edt Altair apo , does anyone have experience of these little devices,& how good are they ( usb controlled ) ? they really seem rather over priced for whats  in the box, about £260 , I know  manual  focus  can be a bit fiddly when imaging ,  do they justify the expense?

[dawson]

I have just motorised a crayford-style focuser with the skywatcher focuser motor, and it does make sorting out focus for my planetary imaging attempts much easier (I can concentrate on the laptop screen rather than looking at the focus know on the scope, and it massively reduces (nearly eliminated any shake). This comes with its own handset, but I have just got the Hitecastro DC Focus unit second hand which then allows me to control the motor from the laptop and I don't need to use the handset.

 

So I like the set up I have. Mine is a bit bodged together as the motor doesn't easily fit onto the focuser but it does the job for now.

 

Rob (red dwarf) has a nice motor set up too, and felix has motorised his moonlite on his newtonian, and I suspect the fancy imagers have all got electronic focusers too.

 

James

[catman161]

As James says above really. I have just a moonlite DC motor focuser with handset on my moonlite CR2 focuser and that wasn't as pricey (£127) and there are ways of motorising your focuser for much less. If you're imaging I would say motor focusing is a must. I actually focused by hand whilst planetary imaging for quite some time and once I had the motor focuser fitted I wondered why I hadn't done it sooner. I don't see any shake when focussing on a planet now. The adjustable speed on motor focusers allow you to make tiny incremental changes. Highly recommended and definitely worth it in my opinion.

[red dwalf]

Hi Ivan,

here's a thread I made when I fitted a hitec autofocuser to my starwave 80 ed, works a treat with the dc focus unit all in 100 pounds for both from modern astronomy, these are alot cheaper than a stepper motor but a stepper motor produces precise repeatable steps every time where the hitec unit won't, but to me you only need to focus once.

http://www.eastmidlandsstargazers.org.uk/topic/5901-fitting-skywatcher-autofocuser-to-starwave-80-ed/