Accessory help

[Chromed]

My first proper telescope arrived today, so when it comes to Astronomy I'm quite new and clueless about a lot of things.
So tonight I took it out to the backyard and tried to have a look at what I could see. I own a 12" dobsonian, and it came with 2 eyepieces, one of which is a 25mm which is good for general looking-for-stuff and a 10mm which is decent for lunar detail.
But the problem is that I'm wanting to see more but I have no idea what to get to help me out.
I know I need a laser Collimator for lens alignment, but what eyepieces should I get to see planetary details for Saturn and Jupiter? Should I also get certain filters?

[PCH]

Hi Greg

and welcome to IIS :welcome: You'd be well advised to read any/all of the half dozen or so similar requests from newbies in the past week or so.

The advice would be the same for you. You need the collimator, - quite right. Also, a 2x Barlow would be a great accessory. That will make your current EPs into 5mm and 12.5mm. The 5mm will be great for viewing Jup and Saturn when they're viewable and seeing is good, as well as more mag for the moon detail. Although be prepared to move the dob around a bit as it'll move quite quickly across the fov.

Other accessories would be a Planetarium, a red light torch, and an adjustable seat, as viewing through a dob can be quite back-breaking work!

The only filter I'd bother with at the moment would be a moon filter. If you look at the full moon without one, it will ruin your night vision for about 3 months :P

How's that for starters?

Cheers:thumbsup:

[GrahamL]

great advice from paul :)
easy charts to follow here
http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

very handy observing tool
http://www.backyard-astro.com/equipment/accessories/telrad/telrad.html


If funds allow you'll see more with one of these .

http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au/

[Chromed]

Thanks!
Would it be worth getting a 2x as well as a 3x, or is that just a bit too crazy for someone as new as myself? Do brands make a horrible difference when it comes to lenses? I'll probably be buying it all online, there is an optics store close by to my area, but they haven't replied to any of my emails so I'm going to give the the flick.

I noticed the back breakage last night on my first night in the backyard, I was quite sore after the 1hr of trial and error inbetween getting frustrated with the cloud cover due to the cyclone up north, getting crabby with my finderscope for not being able to align with the telescope, and the fact that I couldn't focus properly on starts with the 10mm because they seemed to have some form of tail, do I need to collimate already?

I have a copy of Starry Night which I've put on a laptop to help out with the night. A mechanical pointing addon would be great, but I just blew a whole heap of money on the scope, so I imagine myself to be poor for a while:rofl:

[erick]

Hi Greg, take a big breath and slow down! The sky will be there for years to come. :D

The Bintel ED 2x 2" barlow will do just fine for now. That is worth getting.

https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Images/Stock/7206X.jpg

Now, let's call them eyepieces rather then lenses. And you need to learn more about the sky and get your scope working well before you think about shelling out $s for more eyepieces.

With your finderscope, try to experiment during the day. MAKE SURE YOU DON"T POINT THE TELESCOPE ACCIDENTALLY OR INTENTIONALLY TOWARDS THE SUN. And don't leave it unattended with the caps off if children are around! Do you have a distant tree or post or, the best, a distant antenna? Then find it in your scope with the 25mm, then adjust your finderscope screws until the crosshairs are on it. Easier to learn how to do this on a terrestrial object, since it doesn't move in your field of view the way stars do. And stars look much alike so you can get confused. TV antennas are pretty unique! Then change to the 10mm and repeat to get the finderscope as accurate as you can. (Of course, each time you take the finderscope off and replace or move the scope around, you will want to check this again.)

To ease that back, start with a gaslift office chair. It won't get you all that high (try a cushion or two) unless you have a drafting gas lift installed, which I did!

Yes, you will need to collimate the scope which, in its simplest sense, is aligning the two mirrors so the image (with as much of the collected light as possible) is coming to a focus at the correct place in the focusser tube. The manual will have a description of how to do that without any extra tools. Give that a go.

Study the video at http://www.andysshotglass.com/Collimating.html (http://www.andysshotglass.com)

If you are ordering from Bintel you could get an Orion Collimating eyepiece:-

https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Images/Stock/5508X.jpg

and/or a laser collimator:-

https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Images/Stock/8108X.jpg

depending how the funds hold up. (Did you think that you wouldn't have to spend any more money! Sorry! But watch the second hand market - many bargains to be had!)

But you can get collimated well enough by eye, using the instructions in your manual, to make a great start.

Best of course, find a local experienced person and invite them over with suitable bribes of coffee/tea/beer etc!

[Chromed]

*takes a deep breath*
I tried to align the finderscope last night with the moon, being a big bright object it was hard to miss, I'll give it a try on some tree later today as well as my visual collimation attempt :)

No, I knew I'd have to spend more money, I'm just not willing to blow that much on a mechanical aid... for now ;)

Time to check out bintel, thanks again! :D

[JimmyH155]

Hi Greg. Yes, the back comes in for a bit of a pasting. I was horrified at the prices for a special astro chair, so I did this::::::)
I got a small step ladder from Bunnings (2 steps plus top one). Then
I cut out a piece of 1 inch plywood (you could use something similar) and attached it to the second step with a waste piece of 6 mm bar bent like an S shape and fitting into a hole in the ply. I then add a cushion and another piece of wood (actually a wooden chopping board):D, and for those real high occasions, I use a folded up children's life jacket to get even more height. Cumbersome? Not a bit of it. Very comfy and stable, and the whole thing comes apart for when you have to change a light bulb in the ceiling using the step ladder in "Original" mode:lol::lol::thumbsup:

[bmitchell82]

for your culmination get a laser culminator and utilize the barlow laser culmination technique ( search for it). align the finderscope on venus, 3rd brightest thing in the sky after the sun and the moon. happy days good buy!

[Chromed]

All of the bits came in today, I ended up ordering the laser collimator, 2x barlow, a moon filter and a red LED torch incase I ever needed it.

I tried to manually collimate previously but had no idea what I was doing, laser made the job relatively painless, though I had a bit of trouble aligning up the laser into the dohnut. Tonight's weather in Brisbane is very very cloudy but there was the occasional gap where I managed to sneak a peak at a few things.
Sirius (said Starry Night) was the brightest object I could find, and after a while of searching I switched to the Barlow with the 10mm EP, the difference with focus was quite large compared to pre-collimation, though it still appeared fuzzy and couldn't focus 100% on it - I'll have to play with collimating every time I move the telescope outside methinks.
No moon tonight until really late and by that time I won't have anyone in the house to help me move the canon:rofl:.
I think i'll try to make a moving platform for it before the chair, I can put up with the backbreakage for now but the transportation is just painful. I'm still having a bit of trouble aligning the finderscope, it's a bit off to one direction and I can't turn the 2 adjustable knobs any further to make it lean that way, but at least it's consistant so objects are easy to find.

Thanks again for all the help and advice, I'll have to walk into a bookstore sometime and look for a 'tourists guide to the sky' so I have some idea of nice things to point the scope at :D

[erick]

http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html You want the Southern hemisphere edition. :thumbsup:

[erick]

ps. check that your finderscope is properly located in the mount on the rubber O-ring. If that doesn't work and you cannot see any other solution, remove the finderscope from the dovetail mount, loosen the screws holding the dovetail mount to the tube and I bet you'll find you can slightly relocate the dovetail mount in the right direction, then tighten the screws again.

[Chromed]

*prints*

Mmm, I'll toy with the finderscope tomorrow night if the sky is clear, though my current priority is to get collimation right :). I'd rather spend 5mins looking for an object and it being clear than finding the object quickly and not being able to focus well onto it. Patience comes easily to me.

[erick]

Why was this:- "though I had a bit of trouble aligning up the laser into the dohnut." Tight screws on the secondary tilt? Couldn't get the spot to move on the primary mirror?

[Chromed]

Luckily this is a beginners forum.. So.. Secondary tilt? :shrug:

[erick]

OK, let's call them the secondary collimation screws :D Given that they, and the three primary colimation screws work by tilting the respective mirrors, I have sometimes called them the "tilt screws". So they affect the tilt of the mirror, hence "secondary tilt". Sorry:)

[Chromed]

Finderscope is aligned now, I removed it and put everything back together. Though the collimation is off, looks like I'm going to have to do it every time i move it. Had a look at Venus and I could see the crescent shape but no further detail.. Curses :doh:

[erick]

Re Venus - that's all you are going to see :D Turn that scope towards the Moon and the Orion nebula, the Trapezium stars and 47 Tuc! Have a go at the Tarantula nebula. Try for NGC 253 soon after the sky goes really dark. Stay up to 3am and look for Saturn! Venus is boring after you have seen the crescent.

Yes, check and tweak collimation everything you move, assemble etc. It takes only tens of seconds and is always worth doing.

[Chromed]

Ah really? I thought perhaps I'd be able to see a bit more detail of Venus. I did look at the Orion nebula tonight as well, wanted to have a look at the constellation up close, I didn't realise there was a nebula there until I said to myself "Why aren't those clouds moving?"
Tried hunting for the Tarantula Nebula because there is a 'Magellanic Cloud' nearby but had no idea where to point the scope, I'll have to pray that the clouds go away sometime.
3am is a bit too late for me due to my random work hours, so Saturn is out for a little bit, and I can't find NGC 253 on that sky map :shrug:.

Wondering if I should post in a new thread to continue this, it's gotten a bit off-topic :D

[erick]

You've got Starry Night on the lappie? Search for Tarantula nebula and NGC253 with it, to locate them.