Well, here is the first telescope to have the Sidereal Technology controller! It's Dan Gray's 28" telescope. This scope has been a success in many ways. Unfortunately Dan has been too busy developing Sidereal Technology, that he has never quite finished the 28". It works great, but he would like to do a few more things to it, like better baffling, re-work part of the mirror cell, etc, maybe somday!
Click here to view Dan Gray's 28 inch!

Well, now we have a second scope, Dan Gray's 14" telescope. This one went through some changes. First it had Dans micro-stepper system on it. After the SiTech adventure, he put the servo system on it. Since it's a roller drive, it has external encoders, which are a great help!

It also uses the SiTech Focuser, and the SiTech Field De-rotator. These are all controlled with the SiTech ASCOM driver, and MaximDL is used to control the camera, all from the same laptop computer. Dan is slowly getting better at astrophotography, it takes a lot of patience! Check out the Astrophoto section to see some of Dan's work


Here's the Observatory for the 14"
Here's more shots of the 14 inch telescope, closeups of the altitude drive, focuser, and field de-rotator

In thinking how to get the word out about this great control system, we decided to purchase a more conventional "DOB", and convert it. It is a 16" Night Sky Scopes telescope.
Click here to see pictures of our modification of the Night Sky Scopes 16 inch:
We will be taking this to star parties and trade shows to demonstrate the features of the SiTech system. This scope has the gear reducers/clutches on it, and it does work nicely!

Don Peckham has been a beta tester for the new SiTech ASCOM driver. He has his telescope working great already!
He also uses the SlewNTrack mode when he's too lazy to get his laptop out!
Enjoy!
Don Peckhams Scope:

Howard Banich is a great friend of mine, and has helped tremendously with testing and suggestions. He's very patient, especially when he found the bug in the SiTech Argo Navis interface (SiTechs bug, not Argo Navis's), where the scope decided to be a merry go round instead! I'm happy to report that bug has been squashed! Howard sooo impresses me with his observing, that's what he wants to do, and we're humbled to think we're helping him in his endevour. He uses his 28 inch scope exclusivly in the DragNTrack mode, he doesn't want to deal with a computer, and he knows the sky so well, I like to think he's using a computer anyway (his mind).
He composed an excellent article about building his scope. Enjoy!
Howard Banich's 28 inch scope: