Intro from Perth

[jayeson]

I've been hanging out here for a little while and it is probably about time I did an intro. I'm in metro Perth and use a recently acquired a Celestron Edge HD 800 on VX mount. It was purchased for app and electronics development to fill in some downtime with our business, but we're busy again so that will probably have to wait.

I have managed to get out and test the scope a few times. The first couple of times aligning the mount was a disaster - after aligning the first star it would do an epic slew over the top to point down into the garden. Adding more stars never fully got things right. In the end I manually guided over to Saturn and I can't express how exciting it was to see that for the first time after 2 hours of fighting the mount. It was a good night - the Cassini division was clearly visible and I'm pretty sure I could see some banding on the planet.

I have since upgraded the controller firmware and goto is working well. I also set some bricks vertically into the lawn with some registration points drilled into them. That is quite stable - better than I expected.

With the mount working I've viewed a few things: the moon is a forgiving target, as is 47 Tucanae. I've been able to spot Omega Centauri in the finder but has been down in the light pollution and combined with neighbours lights everywhere, I can't make out much through the scope. A satellite came tumbling through the finder at one point which was a fine surprise.

Just about everything else seems to behind trees.

I've attached a photo of the setup. It was a good choice for our needs, although from looking through the finder, it seems a good short focal length refractor will needed. :)

- Jayeson

[wasyoungonce]

Jayeson

Welcome to IIS. The Edge is a damn fine all rounder scope and will give you good service. Here's a hint...when the bug to upgrade bites...keep the edge 800 and buy something else.

You will come back to the 8" SCT or compare everything against it!

I had an 8" SCT... sold it to upgrade...gawd I miss it now!:sadeyes:

edit:
if you're a backyard observer...just use some 12V power supplies for power. I use an old computer PSU modd'ed to supply +12V...oh and a separate dew heater PSU for dew control!

I saw you purchased some TV & LV eyepieces or were looking at them...damn you are on the ball! Well done eyepieces last a lifetime!;)

[brian nordstrom]

Hi Jayeson , and :welcome:mate , there are quite a few of us here in Perth so if you want to hook up sometime please don't be shy , and if the weather is ok a night will be on .
What part of Perth are you in ?

Nice scope for sure , welcome to the CAT club , :D .
Brian.

[jayeson]

Thank you for the welcomes! I am very satisfied with the Edge HD. It and the mount are about at the limit of what I can be bothered lugging outside and setting up.

Brendan, I did buy those two eyepieces (just arrived today), have an LVW 13 on the way from Amazon, and will get an LVW 22 if/when the price drops back down again. My eyes don't like looking through lenses of any kind for very long, so deciding to get decent eyepieces didn't require a lot of consideration. Plus I have astigmatism which thins out the options a bit.

I will sort out some power at some point, but for the moment it has been too easy to just hook up the battery pack and go.

Brian, I am in Bateman, which is off Kwinana Freeway. I am definitely looking forward to using the scope somewhere dark, although a few more practice sessions are probably in order first. :-)

- Jayeson

[alocky]

Hi there - I'm in Bateman too! Less than 1km away in fact. Welcome to IIS, and pm me if you feel like catching up.
Cheers,
Andrew.

[wasyoungonce]

jayeson

Televue have a range of Diopitx adaptors Astigma correctors (http://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=54#.VDL-glc4LzI)for a good rage of their long eye relief FL eyepieces. I believe these can fit/work with some non-televue eyepieces (http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/168651-televue-dioptrx-first-light/)as well.

Might be worthy of consideration! Oh they make nice eyepieces as well.:lol:

Brendan

[jayeson]

Thanks for the info Brendan. Looks like they fit the LVW's - I will add one in an order sometime when convenient.

- Jayeson

[alocky]

What's you script? I've got one for 2.25 if you want to try it. But honestly, I find stig is less of an issue at high powers, and I leave my specs on for low power, so I rarely use it.
Cheers
Andrew

[jayeson]

Oh wow, thank you for the offer Andrew. Mine is only around 0.625 and I go with 0.5 on my glasses because 0.75 is unbearable within a minute. For me it presents as 2 distinct vertically shifted images, even with the 0.5 correction. Certainly much more tolerable at high power, but still not as good as it could be for bright stars or thin planet details.

The thought of a quality, flat glass corrector instead of curved plastic does sound very appealing to me.

[Renato1]

Hi, and welcome.
I've got lousy astigmatism too.

For me, it isn't a problem with eyepieces that give 2mm exit pupils or smaller. It is very noticeable with 3mm exit pupils or bigger.

When changing lens scrip, I'd get them to grind my old eyeglass lenses into circles with one notch on the top for the right eye, and two notches for the left eye). Then with Blutack I stuck the right eye lens onto 40mm and 32mm 1.25" eyepieces (and a set into my 10x70 binoculars).

Then I found that the very cheap 2" GSO 26mm, 32mm, 30mm and 50mm eyepieces had very long eyerelief, and could easily be used with eyeglasses to give excellent views. Though I have a problem you don't have - I don't use a GOTO, and when I'm wearing my glasses, I can't read my star maps.

Beware of very good quality low power super wide angle and ultra wide angle eyepieces. They have shallower eye relief, and your eyeglasses can hit the eyepiece glass.

On the other hand, I like using 9mm exit pupils in my dob, because I can tilt my eye and get rid of the astigmatism without losing part of the field. But that exit pupil is kind of difficult to achieve in your telescope.
Regards,
Renato