First Light 10" Newt

[DJScotty]

Hi everyone...

A LOOOONG time ago (October 2014), I purchased a second hand 10" newt off a fellow IIS member. It needed a LOT OF WORK. New focusser, which led to complete realignment of mirrors, drilling, modifying, coma corrector etc etc etc. Plus, lots of bad weather have delayed its first light collection session.

BUT last night, beautiful clear weather and a perfectly collimated scope.

This is first light from the scope. As the Atik 11000 is back in UK being fixed have reverted back to the trusty DSLR (D600)

I know there are lots of warts and bloated stars. No calibration frames were applied to this image. A bit of stretching in Photoshop (I miss FITS Liberator) plus colour adjustment etc.

Full version here
http://www.astrobin.com/171671/
Thanks for looking folks!

DJ Scotty

[alpal]

Hi Scott,
The stars look out of focus.
What sort of Newt is it?
Is there such a Newt. as a Meade 10" EMC?

Is it a 10" f5?

cheers
Allan

[gregbradley]

That's promising. As mentioned focus is off. The good news is it seems it out of focus the same all over so its probably pretty square and collimated.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

:question:...aaaah yeees :lol:

Seriously, good on ya Scott, I am sure you will sort the issues in due course, good to have a first light under your belt regardless :thumbsup:

Mike

[RickS]

A good start, Scotty!

[DJScotty]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement.
Have had a ***** of a time with this scope to date.
Al, the specs on the scope are as follows...
BRAND: Arboro. Looks very much like a Meade scope I saw on the internet. I can find very little about Arboro telescopes anywhere. That's why I had Meade on Astrobin.
FL: 1150mm
Aperture: 254mm
FR: F4.5

In regards to the focus, today I transplanted the motorised focuser from the ED80 onto the 10". Stuck to the tube with a bit of Gaff... (Hey my first barndoor tracker ran on Lego gears!)

Hopefully tomorrow night will enable a better go. (If the SOB next door keeps his back yard flood light off!!!!! :mad2:)

DJ Scotty

[Slawomir]

Hi Scott,

Motorised focuser will surely help in achieveing good focus, in particular at F4.5.

Gaff, huh? LOL
There is nothing like tweaking and improvising with astro gear on cloudy days/nights :)

In my ongoing crusade to eliminate flex and madly tightening everything up I noticed I was squizzing light out my refractor, literally. Realised that I must have tightened tube rings too much when recently started getting funny looking star shapes in my astro images...So goodby guidescope and hello my old OAG :)

P.S. The scope can breathe again with loosened (normally tightened) tube rings.