A few days before my superb Total Solar Eclipse holiday in South America, I discovered my Crayford focuser had totally packed up having used it for nearly 10 years.
I was advised by the great Dave Grennan to send it back to William Optics who are in Taiwan.
Therefore I got in touch with my usual guy Tim and he advised me ought to completely replace the whole unit.
After some thought I took him up on his advice.
The brand new focuser arrived very quickly but with great expense.
However I must say I have not regretted my decision in the slightest. (It's only money after all).
Having fitted the new unit to my scope on Tuesday 30th July, I am greatly impressed with my new Crayford.
It is seriously smooth. I only had to readjust my balancing of my William Optics apochromatic refractor. Now that's perfect too.
So I am now completely ready for action!
Just bring it on!
Of course there is a school of thought that states whenever someone purchases a new item of equipment, we are guaranteed 6 weeks of cloudy skies.
Oh well -never mind!
Kind regards,
Aubrey.
The following user(s) said Thank You: michael_murphy, lunartic_old, johnomahony, scfahy
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.
Rich Cook
The following user(s) said Thank You: michael_murphy, flt158
Hello everyone.
I am most thankful to God for providing me with the new Crayford focuser I now own. (I'm spiritually on fire right now -I hope none of you mind).
Last Thursday night (1st August), I set up my William Optics 158 mm apochromatic refractor in my back garden and waited for the stars to appear.
Arcturus was first on the menu. Its golden orange colour was well focused at 40X. That 28 mm eyepiece gives me 40X and 2 degrees field of view. It is my heaviest eyepiece, and it is the furthest out-to-focus I have. All others reach good focus further inwards. So I'm very relieved.
After Arcturus where else would I go -only up to Izar (Epsilon Bootis)
It was split at 112X. At 140X, I easily figure out its colours -yellow orange and slight blue. But I needed to know how my other eyepieces would focus. And I am very happy to inform you all that each and every eyepiece works perfectly in my apo all the way up to 374X. Izar's colours are very intense especially at the highest powers. I don't remember using such high powers on Izar in the past.
From 225X The Airy discs and diffraction rings were evident and very strong.
So now I am officially ready to share my astronomical experiences with you all once again.
Clear skies to all,
Aubrey.
The following user(s) said Thank You: michael_murphy
  