| review: Homeyer Motorized Filter Wheel (appr. € 500,-) |
These wheels are made by Andy Homeyer, USA.
I bought the 6 filters version with serial connection.
It comes with 4 empty threads for the filters clear, red, green, blue.
The other two filters are allready equipped with a black one for the dark frames and a milky white one for flat frames.
Andy is asking about the necessary adaptors for the wheels and includes these to the wheel.
I used Pentax Thread (M42x1) and T-Thread (M42x0.75) versions.
This fits very fine to the thread of my Starlight XPress CCDs, to the M42x1 lenses and to a nose piece to 1 1/4" or T-Thread for the telescope focusers.
The standard adaptors allow the rotation of the CCD camera to any angle.
A special tool for fixing the position is included.
As shown on the next picture the wheel is extremly flat and hence does not take a lot of back focus.
Even better: with my adaptors the overall thickness is 27mm which is exactly what I need to use all M42x1 lenses together with the HX916 CCD.
The mechanical quality of Andy's work is excellent.
Black anodized aluminum, proper threads and every thing fits perfect.
The little stepper motor is covered by a small cap made from black plastic.
Operation
If you connect the device to power (appr. 18 V direct) the wheel starts turning and searches for the clear filter.
This takes a maximum of several seconds.
That's all.
From now on you can press the *fast forward* button on the little control box.
The wheel will turn to the next filter.
Several built in LEDs are indicating the current filter color (yellow for the flat frame filter, white for the clear one, the rest is obvious!).
I taped that little control box to the pier of my telescope where I can reach it easily from the laptop computer operating position.
That's why I did not use the serial connection so far.
With the serial connector I could automate the RGB sequence in AstroArt.
Sooner or later I will give it a try...
The Flat Frame Filter
As Andy writes in his manual this option does not generate a *serious* flat frame.
Because the pictures are later made with the other filters there cannot be a compensation for dirt on the filters itself with that flat filter.
But with this option the flat can be taken even in daylight and is able to compensate for vignetting.
That's a nice feature.
Conclusion
I am very happy with that motorized filter wheel.
In fact all of my (L)RGB photos are taken with it.
It's highly recommended...
Search photos taken with the Homeyer filter wheel
Andy Homeyer WebSite
Comment: Winter 2002
My filter wheel refused to turn correctly the last night.
I found out that there was a bit of rust on the rear bearing of the axis.
I disassamled it, cleaned the axis and put a drop of oil to it.
Now it's perfect again!
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