Remote control collimation - ideas please
Rick Foust
My 16" Newt is a pain to collimate. I need a ladder to reach the secondary mirror screws. I would like to be able to make on-the-fly colllmation tweaks, with camera installed, from my warm room, like I tweak focus. I am planning to install a small geared stepper motor (28BYJ) on each of the 3 secondary mirror adjustment screws. I see two options for the controller. I could create a duplicate of my MKS Gen L ONSTEP controller and use three focuser configs to run the steppers. This would require running 12 wires to the steppers. Or I could build a controller that is small enough to mount on the secondary mirror support along with the steppers (in the shadow of the 4" secondary mirror). That would only require 2 wires (power) instead of 12.
Or, instead of a second ONSTEP controller, maybe I could use a small CNC controller? Any thoughts?
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