3D Printing Upgrades for a Classic Dobsonian Telescope

A few years back, I sold my beloved 12" Zhumell Dobsonian in favor of the venerable 12" Portaball. Before moving on, I compiled a list of 3D printing improvement ideas tailored for the classic steel OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) Dob.

Pictured above is an example of a conceptual multi-section Dobsonian base ("stool") that was never printed in time. The goal was to create a more portable mount that slides directly over the OTA for easy transport. The ground board was designed using a 3/4" plywood base paired with a 3D-printed raised lip ring rail (split into multiple sections to fit a standard 10x10-inch printing bed as well).

Smartphone holder

I'm using the smartphone at the telescope eyepiece at all times. The most convenient way of keeping it at hand is the wrist lanyard. It's often possible to find a phone  case with a lanyard attachment holes or use the USB hole with a special lanyard plate. But all of that is not 100% reliable, nor very functional. Thus I have made my own solution: the sliding frame.

Aside from super reliable lanyard attachment point it's also providing two mounting options.

3D-Printing Portaball truss telescope struts markers

Maintaining the order of struts around the Primary is naturally reproducing the UTA general orientation as last collimated. That's minimizing the collimation effort needed during the telescope setup. I have 3D printed strut rings with Braille code digital dots to identify each strut blindly in the dark and quickly in  low light. No flashlight use required ever.

These are trivial to print, though some tricks are helpful to know. The way I have them installed ads two more ways to ID them:

My EAA rig for SeeStar S50

EAA stands for Electronically Assisted Astronomy. Its primary difference from the classic hobby is that you are looking at an image on some screen instead of directly at the object in the sky. There are multiple EAA options from obvious sensitive camera and fast image stacking options to military night vision devices and scientific image intensifier tubes re-emitting the light after the signal is passing high voltage cascades. Though the later extreme is commonly called NVA (night vision astronomy). Thus that's not covered here. For visual astronomy I prefer the good old wide field eyepiece view. The 100 deg. AFOV is an unbeatable joy. Thus, I have made a very similar experience possible with my SeeStar S50 EAA rig.

Aside from designing, procuring the optics, and 3D printing, the project requires some additional mobile software and phone tricks to make it a real joy to use. It is compatible with most any typical imaging rig as well.

Celestron Powerseeker 60EQ OTA rings mod.

This is for my tower balcony 24/7 seeker. With heavy EPs it's asking for a significant OTA rebalancing often. The first solution was an OTA counterweight (3lb) sliding on H&L tension belts. This one is finally the ultimate solution for this classic small tube long refractor telescope:

Design details as follows.

Hiking with SeeStar S50

 Tripod can be ditched in favor of something like this to distribute S50 weight on Az axis:

SeeStar S50 trick: No leveling nor compass ever?

Obsolete. Just point to starry patch and tap red "shoot" button.

Being working on the Plate Solving project myself in the past, I've figured that SeeStar firmware implementation might follow a similar math for its functionality.

That led to a few simple experiments confirming that initially. After a few software updates from ZWO  rendering my initial findings obsolete I now have reworked my quick guide below.