I thought being able to rotate the sensor's field of view would be certainly not necessary, but a nice thing to have, so I wonder how many here are using one of these field rotators?

and: if your's breaks today, would you buy another one?

Did you, maybe, consider one, but decided against it?

EKOS supports the feature, but eg the Moonlite focuser/rotator is >2k USD. I think my lathe and me can handle the hardware build, and probably also a small arduino type program controlling rotation of sensor, filter and reducer/flattener (who want to shoot a new set of flats every time?)

Would be sweet to integrate it functionally into EKOS too, if that's a possibility...

Thanks for your input!

Michael

If you can build your own hardware, then when you make the arduino serial interface, just mimic what the current Moonlite rotator does and then yours would work right away with the existing drivers.

I have the Pyxis. I do like it - but it does add space in the train. With one FF it seemed to work okay, but I was not getting a flat field. (sag?) I tried several spacing adjustments. Still not good. I switched the Stellarvue FF with a ES 3" FF recommended for the 6" APO. I could not reach focus. So I had to remove the rotator yesterday. I would buy again if it works in your spacing. With a EFW and OAG between the sensor and FF... there isnt eough room to include it in that area.

That means it has to be between scope and FF. This works with the SV .8 FF. The ES 3" FF wants to be connected to the drawtube and would not focus. = (
For a wide field, rotating isn't a issue. Just rotate later and crop a little. With the 6" refractor the FOV is so narrow that I always WANT TO ROTATE to compose or include details I want. If you have a narrow FOV it is wonderful. I have not had much control over it other than in SGP using mosaic and framing wizard... I could compose my framing before turning to the target. It will rotate the view as I chose in the tool. With KStars/Indi - it looks even more attractive because it APPEARS? that I can rotate the view while pointing the scope!? If so that would be awesome. HOWEVER - this is the one device I have not been able to connect in Ekos/INDI yet. (this and cloud watcher).

Thank you. I think I have most of my build in my head already, and likely will treat the rotator just like my motor focus, Your description of your issues/ problems sure was helpful!

I am too worried about slop in the system, my new refractor sure has a much smaller critical focus zone, so any sag would show...

The other problem if building is the pyxis will "slip" rather than jam into something. But it takes a good bit of pressure to allow it to slip. Also we don't want it to slip to easily because the early version did that I read and the weight of the camera/EFW would be so heavy on one side that it would slip during rotation. They put a sponger motor in the newer version.
I just pulled it off and waiting for clear skies to test again.