Celeston Nexstar EVO Homemade Wedge V0.1

I made this wedge because I want to try to take long exposure deep sky photos and with a simple Alt/az mount is not easy to do without a wedge and the Celestron official wedge is not very affordable.

 Material:

•     1x wooden plank [100x20x1,8]cm (the width is in base of your telescope diameter for me is approximately 20 cm)
•     3x Bolt+nuts+washers M10 [diameter] 50mm [lenght] 1,25mm [screw size] (for this diameter it depends of your mount holes)
•     3x Bolt+nuts+washers 3/8–16 (inch) bolts (for this select the bolt compatible with your scope)
•     3x metal hinges and screw
•     1x threaded rod M10 1 meter long (with bolts and washers)

(you can buy also 6x 3/8–16 bolts.... in my country is difficult to find these type of bolts)

  Instruments:

•     Drill
•     Saw for wood 
•     Saw for metal
•     some sand paper for refinements

 Measure your mount! with a meter and a caliber, or find online the measures...

  For a Nexstar EVO 6 mount is:

• Diameter of the mount to the center of the bolts 16,4 cm (r = 8.2cm)
• The bolts size is 0.925 mm (3/8–16)
• The diameter of the entire base is 20cm

The wood plank is 100cm so i have choosen to divide in half the plank.

After with a compass draw a structure like that in the picture with your measures for the drills hole. For the part that will go on the mount it's easy because you can draw at one edge of the plank. I took a space of 22 cm for the base and draw the circle in the middle (11cm from the edge and 10cm in the middle).

Same structure as before but from the edge I left 12cm

Drill the hole (10mm diameter)

I put two of the three metal hinges i the middle of the base (in the middle because permit a better weight distribution).

A tip before screwing: put some washers as a thickness for better screwing in the hinges.

I used the third hinge as an angle for support the threaded rod, I drill a hole (10mm diameter) and screwed it at the edge of the base wood plank.

(I cut the threaded rod in half)

I 3D printed a joint for the threaded rod to the telescope top plank to allow better movement to the rod.

I screwed it slightly above the telescope hole.

This is only for now a prototype I do not guarantee it can hold the telescope because in Italy (where i live) the bolts compatible with the telescope are pretty difficult to find and I couldn't test it...

When I will complete the project obviously I will update the instructables!

The concept is very simple, like the equatorial mount you have to point to the North Star (if you are in the northern hemisphere) the telescope and this permit you to simplify the motor movement. In a normal Alt/Az for the tracking system the mount need to move two motor for balancing the earth movement, with a wedge the Alt/Az will have to move only one motor, and this reduce the errors and boost the tracking quality!

P.s sorry for my english :)...