Saxon dobsonian

[Aaronworboys]

Hi,
I only bought my scope a week ago and can't seem to do anything with it. Everything is out of focus and I've tried everything! Can anyone help me?
I'm out at karalee, between Ipswich and Brisbane...
Any help will be much appreciated

[Scorpius51]

Has it been correctly collimated? This should have been done prior to shipping, but it may have slipped out of alignment.

Does the focus tube appear to have full and easy travel? Have you unlocked the focus clamp screw? There are probably 2 lock screws near the base of the focus mount. Usually the back one is the focus lock.

Cheers
John

[barx1963]

OK, when you say you have tried everything, perhaps telling us what you have tried will give us some clues.

A few things to check.
Can you see anything at all?
What are you attempting to view?
Which eyepiece are you using?
Have you attempted to collimate?
I know this sounds silly but have you removed the dustcap? (It has happened before!!)

Malcolm

[batema]

My thoughts are to look through the eyepiece like a 25mm and find the moon (but that is coming up late 3am). You could even look at the moon during the daytime but as long as it is not near the Sun. You may have to manually move the scope with hands to find it and that will then allow you to align the finderscope on the moon. In fact you should be able to get a crater fairly central and then align the finderscope on the crater. Even if the moon is out of focus you should be able to find it. Once scope and finderscope are aligned go to Jupiter and do the fine tuning of the alignment of the scope and finderscope. If you can not see anything phone the people you bought it from and seek their advice. Good luck.

Mark

[AstralTraveller]

Can you get anything by looking during the day at terrestrial objects a few hundred metres away. They will be flipped over but you should be able to get a focus. Start with the eyepiece with the largest number written on it; that will give you the lowest magnification and see the largest area, and so make life easier for you.

:welcome:

[Aaronworboys]

Thank you. Perfect

[Suzy]

Hi Aaron,
If you're still having trouble, take your scope along to Astro Petes Telescopes & Cafe over in Palmdale Shopping Centre in Mt Gravatt. The guys there are very helpful and I'm sure they won't mind helping you out- they're pretty good that way. Saturday nights there open till late as they have their scopes out & do sidewalk astronomy there.

http://www.astropetes.com.au/

Regarding what Malcolm said about the dust cap maybe being left on- *face palm* we've all done it. :lol:

[madbadgalaxyman]

When I started in astronomy, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (in the early 1970s!), my primary problem was actually moving the focuser to the point where the stars were points rather than blobs. Took me a surprisingly long time!!


It could be a simple matter that you need to move the focuser to the right place; best to point the telescope at a bright star in the sky, and then move the focusser till the star is a point rather than a large blob(Out of focus). Or focus on the moon.
Then, everything else you look at will be in focus.

Another difficult problem when you are a beginner is actually finding the object, because the field of a telescope is sort of like "a narrow porthole in the sky" and therefore it is easier to miss an object than to find it if you try hunting around for it with the main telescope instead of hunting around for it with the Finder Telescope or "optical sighter" ;
before using the telescope to find astronomical objects, it is of great importance to first align the Finder Telescope's view accurately with the field of view of the telescope. Point the telescope at a distant landmark, and get the landmark centred in the telescope. Then adjust the finder till it is accurately centred on the landmark.
(can also use a bright star in the sky for this exercize)
The objective of this exercize is : when the Finder Telescope or Red Dot Finder or Telrad or "Optical
sighting tube" is centred on the object you want to look at, the object should also be visible in the field of the telescope at low power.
(always find objects using the finder, and then use the lowest available power to acquire the object in the telescope; use the longest focal length eyepiece)

-madgalaxyman

[Chif]

This was the problem I had with my saxon dobsonian. It turned out that the focuser was locked with a thumb screw. When you move the focusing wheel, is the focuser itself actually moving?