Any Rube Goldberg Devices you want to admit to?

Knowing people's inventiveness, and the name of this newsgroup, I
thought folks might like to demonstrate just how inventive they might be.



TBerk

Knowing people's inventiveness, and the name of this newsgroup, I
thought folks might like to demonstrate just how inventive they might be.

A few years ago I became tired of turning my Celstar C8's Wedgepod back and
forth to get it polar aligned. I made some simple alterations to it that makes
it easy to for visual purposes. It has really helped for setting up my
SkyVector II DSCs

Here is a link to the How To pages:

http://hometown.aol.com/nlpjp2/index2.htm

Regards,
Jerry
http://hometown.aol.com/nlpjp/index.html

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 01:37:05 GMT, T wrote:



Knowing people's inventiveness, and the name of this newsgroup, I
thought folks might like to demonstrate just how inventive they might be.



TBerk

Using an electric toothbrush vibration as a way of eliminating bad
seeing. At some settings, and in some seeing, it actually worked,
where the image as a whole was moving. But if the image was
disrupted, it didn't.
-Rich

T wrote:

Knowing people's inventiveness, and the name of this newsgroup, I
thought folks might like to demonstrate just how inventive they might be.

I can claim no credit, but the white-light (Baader film) filter for
the finder on the Mak I bought a few months ago is elegant, effective,
fits perfectly and is made from unmodified plastic plumbing fittings
(+ film, of course).

I've used bookshelves to stand my tripod on to see out the skylight,
hung plastic bags of beer from my OTA to dampen oscillations, taped
card to my hat to cover my non-observing eye and used innumerable
other hacks to improve my observing, but none have been so elegant,
effective and long-lasting as that solar filter.


Tim
--
This is not my signature.

Tim Auton wrote:
T wrote:

Knowing people's inventiveness, and the name of this newsgroup, I
thought folks might like to demonstrate just how inventive they might be.


I can claim no credit, but the white-light (Baader film) filter for
the finder on the Mak I bought a few months ago is elegant, effective,
fits perfectly and is made from unmodified plastic plumbing fittings
(+ film, of course).

I've used bookshelves to stand my tripod on to see out the skylight,
hung plastic bags of beer from my OTA to dampen oscillations, taped
card to my hat to cover my non-observing eye and used innumerable
other hacks to improve my observing, but none have been so elegant,
effective and long-lasting as that solar filter.


Tim

I've been thinking of making one of those Baader filters for my Dob. I
know that the film comes with instructions for making one, but does
anyone have a design for something similar to what Tim has? In other
words something more substantial than cardboard tubing.

TIA

--
~Sayf

Interesting idea, Rich. Seems like if you had a dial to vary the speed
of the vibrations, you might be able to tune it to your seeing
conditions. DR

On 4 Feb 2005 10:51:45 -0800, "Darian" wrote:

Interesting idea, Rich. Seems like if you had a dial to vary the speed
of the vibrations, you might be able to tune it to your seeing
conditions. DR

Or you can vary the position (what part of the scope)
it's attached to vary amplitude. I found out this kind
of thing worked when observing Jupiter one night a long time ago.
I put my hand on the scope's tripod and the image cleared up somewhat.
Body tremors at least in that case worked.
-Rich

On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:58:45 +0000, Tim Auton
wrote:

T wrote:

Knowing people's inventiveness, and the name of this newsgroup, I
thought folks might like to demonstrate just how inventive they might be.

I can claim no credit, but the white-light (Baader film) filter for
the finder on the Mak I bought a few months ago is elegant, effective,
fits perfectly and is made from unmodified plastic plumbing fittings
(+ film, of course).

I've used bookshelves to stand my tripod on to see out the skylight,
hung plastic bags of beer from my OTA to dampen oscillations, taped
card to my hat to cover my non-observing eye and used innumerable
other hacks to improve my observing, but none have been so elegant,
effective and long-lasting as that solar filter.


Tim

Took 40 grit sand paper painted it flat black and lined the tube of
one of my SCTs. Worked well, but I give
credit to TeleVue for doing it first with their refractors.
-Rich

i don't know about Rube Goldberg, but I am fond of making helpful
little add-ons to help my astronomical pursuits using common household
items. For example:

My eyepiece case is a cooler lined with foam with holes cut for
eyepieces and other accessories.

My Dob is kind of big and heavy for an 8-inch so I used a garage door
handle on the base and made a handle for the OTA using three old belts.

You can see some other stuff I made at
http://www.geocities.com/smalldob/eq...ifications.htm and
http://www.geocities.com/smalldob/pe...nt_summary.htm

Mark

i don't know about Rube Goldberg, but I am fond of making helpful
little add-ons to help my astronomical pursuits using common household
items. For example:

My eyepiece case is a cooler lined with foam with holes cut for
eyepieces and other accessories.

My Dob is kind of big and heavy for an 8-inch so I used a garage door
handle on the base and made a handle for the OTA using three old belts.

You can see some other stuff I made at
http://www.geocities.com/smalldob/eq...ifications.htm and
http://www.geocities.com/smalldob/pe...nt_summary.htm

Mark