Re: ATM New Feather Touch Focuser?

["Ron Newman" <ronaldn@ptd.net>]

I had the chance to check one of the new red feather touch crayfords out.
It is one of the finest crayfords one could buy, even better than the first
model.


At a resent observing outing a fellow was complaining about his focuser
while trying to collimate his scope with a laser. He noted that the
projected
laser image would drift when racking the focuser throughout its travel. So a
small group of us decided to go around and test different crayford focusers.
To our surprise all the different brand crayford focusers showed some amount
of drift when racking the focuser through its travel. Most of the error was
only
a 1/4" of movement of the laser dot on the primary, but some had error up to
3/4 of an inch!
Even the feather touch (first model) had some drift. But the truly amazing
winner of the drift test was an old plastic Meade rack & pinion focuser.
In all fairness the rack & pinion focuser was on a smaller shorter FL scope
so the error
was less when compared to the crayfords mounted on the longer FL 16" up to
24" dobs.
We had a good laugh when the plastic focuser won.

Ron Newman
http://www.focuser.com/



>> > Did someone try the new Feather Touch Focuser?
>I've had the good fortune to try both the old and new ones. They are
>both simply wonderful. I couldn't say that I noticed a difference
>between the two, but I was not comparing them against one another (and I
>tried them months apart on different scopes>
>
>These are simply the finest focuser I have used (not that I've used
>every focuser there is, mind you). For what it's worth, I own a Moonlite
>crayford, and while it is no feathertouch, it's the second best crayford
>I've ever used, and it's relatively inexpensive.
>
>--
>Mike Lindner
>
>