Hi guys,

Been a long time since I posted in this forum. However I never gave up on the idea of sometime getting myself a Mallincam Hyper Color Plus. Although I am still a ways off from ordering an MHCP, something brought the idea to the fore again.

That something is this:

I bought myself a 16" F4.5 Meade Lightbridge.
I embarked on a massive series of mods. Powered, motorised and Dewstrip protected devices everywhere. Put it this way, I have certain devices sharing outputs on a base mounted Dewbuster (Dewcontroller and 12v/3v source) that already has all its 15 outputs in use. This scope is now loaded with gear. All those cables would have made for a spagetti mess and a setup and breakdown nightmare. Thus I ambarked on a very complicated wiring install which while taking forever to do, will once completed mean I have just one heatshrink wrapped cable bundle running to the UTA. I simply connect the RCA jacks to a base mounted RCA connector plate and the same mounted on the UTA.

What does that have to do with the MCHP? Well, I was thinking before I complete the cable bundle and fit the RCA connector plates to the base and the UTA, if there was anything else I was forgetting. Then I thought of a future MCHP purchase. Thats what got me thinking about the MCHP again. That led me to investigate what was new in the Mallincam world and I got very enthused about the whole Mallincam idea again!

I am very excited about the new Cable and laptop software Menu control. So right off the bat I'd be thinking that I would want to include an extra 12v power run up to the UTA for a future PAL mallincam as well as a control cable run within my cable bundle. And sure why not include a Composite and S-Video run while I am at it. Control cable and Video cables would link up to my laptop and assosciated devices on its dob base mounted laptop table arm.

However, I then realised that I might be losing the run of myself. Maybe my new scope is not the ideal platform for the MCHP. I know a dob isn't the ideal platform regardless, a GEM mounted large apeture Hyperstar equipped SCT holds that honour, but maybe even as dobs go my LB16 is not ideal. So I thought I better run a few things by you guys.

In terms of tracking, I have the following:

A 28" Brian Reed RTP. Luckily I specced the large size even though I only had a 12" Dob at the time. ie. Its large enough to accomodate my 16" Lightbridge. I also fitted a JMI Track&Train system to my Lightbridge. Why both?? Well I figured for home visual observing or Visual outreach, I would just use the ALT/AZ 10 minute (before readjustment) simple tracking of the TNT and save myself having to transport or setup the RTP. For planetary imaging I would use my RTP for the main tracking and could use the ALT/AZ controlls of the TNT to smoothly adjust the scope without backlash. This could apply to the Mallincam too. The RTP provides the non Field rotating tracking with the TNT enabling fine pointing adjustments of the scope. My only problem was polar alignment of the platform. It didn't matter too much for visual observing. How long does it take to drift align?

In terms of target aquisition, I fitted a modified Orion Intelliscope DSC system designed for their SVP GEM mounts for use on my Lightbridge Dob.

So the question is. Is anyone using a DSC equipped dob on an equatorial platform with their mallincams with 56sec integrations or did everyone decide it was too much hassle and switch over to a Hyperstar GEM SCT like Neil Horne(SmokinOakim)??

If its workable I have in mind my Outreach dream machine. After polar aligning the platform, the rest of the setup would be very quick because there wouldn't be a mess of cables. For the Moon and maybe M42, I could connect the Mallincam to my Stellarvue F80M 80mm F4 finderscope, (With 45ēdiagonal removed with MCHP in the Straight thru 2" Helical focuser) For everthing else the MCHP would be in the Low profile Moonlite Motorised focuser(also have a Moonlite filterslide). I would view on the base mounted laptop and for outreach the laptop would be connected to a tiny Pico video projector displaying on a Pull up screen.

So is an F4.5 16" Lightbridge with Intelliscope DSC on a RTP a workable platform for the mallincam?