Dark Filter for Starizona Filter Drawer
Description
PDFAbout The Project
The RASA telescope design presents both advantages and disadvantages. One of the most notable is that you can't install a filter wheel into your lightpath! The Starizona filter drawer solved my filter issue quite nicely. Another issue is that you can't take dark frames by mounting the telescope cover, because your camera is in the way. Rather than shell out the money for a nice dark filter, and having to monkey with unscrewing one of my precious filters from the expensive filter drawer, I instead opted to design and print my own dark filter. My Ender 3 isn't perfect optical quality, but in this case I don't think it will be an issue.
Built With
Design
The dark filter simply blocks all incoming light from entering the camera. I suggest using black plastic to help absorb light; I used grey in this print to get better pictures.
There are two small holes in the back side of the filter, where you can optionally glue into place a pair of 6mm neodymium magnets. Make absolutely sure that they are aligned properly with your filter drawer BEFORE gluing them into place, or they will repel the magnets in the filter drawer.
There is enough room to grab the filter drawer with your fingers if you have small hands, but I really don't like presenting opportunities to touch the corrective plate on my RASA. Instead, you can install a small M3 heat set insert on the front face of the filter. If you are not used to heat set inserts, Hackaday wrote a great article on using them. Then, you can install any size M3 bolt, or make your own nice knob to match the other filters.
Print with at least four layers, so that there is plenty of plastic for the heat set insert to bite into. No need for supports or rafts; just print in place.
License
Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.
Contact
Liam Plybon - [email protected]
Project Link: https://github.com/blablabliam/StarizonaDarkFilter
Acknowledgments
Tags
Model origin
The author remixed this model.
