Telescope Configuration & Back Focus Manager Generic equipment discussions · Brent · ... · 1 · 191 · 0

Over the years, my collection of telescopes and accessories has grown, and so has my obsession with getting every configuration just right. Whether I’m switching between deep sky and planetary imaging or experimenting with new gear, I realized one thing: keeping track of all these setups can get complicated—fast.

I started by writing things in a notebook, but didn't keep up with it too well. Then I progressed to an Excel sheet, that has evolved into what I think is a pretty useful tool.  I use a lot of free tools from the community and am glad to be able to contribute something back.

I spent a lot of time tuning out each telescope configuration (e.g., shim spacing and accessories) for a few scopes to get exact back focus distances, and needed a way to get back to an optimized configuration every time I switch to something else. I now use this tool to keep track of each configuration for each scope that I have and can rapidly and reproducibly get back to an optimized setup. I also have used this to plan out new equipment to figure out how to build the optical train and make sure thread size and genders all match up.

Here is a link to the Excel file: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NIssLNKlIT73Da2qLQyF5neC-B0comaH?usp=drive_link

And Here is a link to the video explaining how I use it: https://youtu.be/ujxZ_jHoyYg

I have left it populated with a few scopes, but the design is to let each user make the workbook their own.

I hope you find it useful, and I welcome feedback or ideas for a next version.

Clear skies,
Brent