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Lol. They probably thought it just looks nicer with the fans being "internal". The thing I can't understand is, when they sent me the new fans, they gave me no instructions on how to install them. I emailed them several times requesting some guidance and never got anything. It's really not that difficult, and I'd think it's a relatively common repair so I'm surprised they don't have instructions to hand out.

Yes, I use the TSRCRED 0.8x reducer and it lives inside the focuser. I had to get a custom adapter made by preciseparts.com with threads on the front for the focuser, threads on the rear for my 48mm gear, and a third, internal thread on the front for the reducer. By the way, I think the Riccardi reducer may not work well with the 10"RC. It's designed for an APO which has considerable field curvature, so it corrects for that. The RC has a nearly flat field, so the Riccardi will likely introduce curvature with that scope. The TSRCRED 0.8x reducer is specifically designed for RC scopes and has a very mild flattening effect which works perfectly with the RC.

@@dkuchta5 Thank you for the quick response! I will contact APM and ask if the Reducer will work with the RC. In the official backfocus manual its stated that it works with the 10" GSO RC!

It's a solution I made years ago and am still using. I followed the instructions on this site: arksky.org/asoclean.htm The Photo-Flo can be hard to find but it's a very tiny amount and can probably be left out. I think most people just use a 50/50 solution of distilled water and 90% or higher Isopropyl alcohol.

@@dkuchta5 Great, thanks!

It's a solution I made years ago and am still using. I followed the instructions on this site: arksky.org/asoclean.htm The Photo-Flo can be hard to find but it's a very tiny amount and can probably be left out. I think most people just use a 50/50 solution of distilled water and 90% or higher Isopropyl alcohol.

It did change some. Not a lot, but it definitely needed adjustment.

It's actually a Polyester filter material I got on Amazon: tinyurl.com/4upzr2w6 I have a shroud around the scope, and a "shower cap" cover for the front. The filter material is placed on all the open rear vents. That keeps the critters from making a home inside the scope. 🙂

Indeed. As mentioned in my reply to Michael below, I eventually resolved this by having a local machine shop shave some off of the saddle. I have to say though, now that I'm past this issue I'm thrilled with the performance of the mount. I have about a 65 pound load on it and I regularly get 0.3" to 0.5" guiding. That's twice as good as my previous mount, the iEQ45.

@@dkuchta5 thanks for the info :-)

Exactly what I did. Except I didn't have a friend who could do it so I had to pay a machine shop. After going through a couple of replacement saddles from iOptron, I realized that the actual top of the mount head, the surface that the saddle bolts onto, was not machined flat. They were able to provide me a saddle that worked fine when it was not attached to the mount. But as soon as I bolted it to the mount, the Losmandy rail would no longer slide through it. Apparently, bolting the saddle to the top of the mount caused it to warp slightly to conform to the top of the mount. The tolerances were so tight on the saddle that even a small amount of warping caused it to be unusable. So, like you, getting it machined for larger tolerances was the answer.

Finally send the mount back to iOptron. They replaced the saddle that was undersized, and replaced a defective dec motor.

After a lengthy go-around with their tech support, they exchanged it for me. The new one had the same problem, but not to the degree of the original. A flywheel would smooth out the motion, but it would not take care of the backlash in the system. I found a spot underneath where I think the addition of a washer *might* help, but it looked like a huge effort to completely disassemble everything to get to it. So I'll live with it.

As it says above, I used a Celestron 5SE Telescope and Canon T3i camera. I had a Baader white-light solar filter on the front of the scope. On the camera, I just used the movie function to record this movie. The clicking sound is from the tracking motors on the SE mount as recorded by the camera's microphone.

very cool, thanks!