ChrisRS
20-10-2009, 09:34 AM
Picked up my new Nextstar 8 SE yesterday:party:
Assembly was a breeze, except 2 problems with the red dot starfinder. I had pulled out the plastic protection strip from the battery compartment per the instructions, but could only get it to function by pressing on the battery compartment cover. Eventually I discovered a tiny and very thin film of plastic had been stripped off the plastic strip by the contact spring and was preventing proper battery contact. Doh!
Also had a problem aligning the finder with the OTA because there didn't seem to be enough adjustment on the alt / az alignment screws. Eventually I got it, but the alt screw is at the limit of its movement.
I set up and did a sky align on 3 stars, and this locked in at first attempt. Picked M15 as a go-to target, drives whirred, scope slewed - and there it was, dead centre of eyepiece at 81x. Tried again with 47 Tuc, M4, M29, NGC253 and a few selected stars - dead centre each time. Fantastic:D:D
Drive noise is quite high during high speed slewing, but barely audible at slow speeds and while tracking.
Didn't actually get to do much observation, since this was a "driving lesson", and there was a lot of passing cloud, but 47 Tuc had central mass stars beautifully resolved at 64x, and other stars I briefly looked at were pinpoint sharp. Hope for another run tonight to get a feel for the optical performance.
There is one puzzle - there was a double ended spanner included with the accessories but no mention of what this is for in the manual.
Very happy so far :2thumbs:
Assembly was a breeze, except 2 problems with the red dot starfinder. I had pulled out the plastic protection strip from the battery compartment per the instructions, but could only get it to function by pressing on the battery compartment cover. Eventually I discovered a tiny and very thin film of plastic had been stripped off the plastic strip by the contact spring and was preventing proper battery contact. Doh!
Also had a problem aligning the finder with the OTA because there didn't seem to be enough adjustment on the alt / az alignment screws. Eventually I got it, but the alt screw is at the limit of its movement.
I set up and did a sky align on 3 stars, and this locked in at first attempt. Picked M15 as a go-to target, drives whirred, scope slewed - and there it was, dead centre of eyepiece at 81x. Tried again with 47 Tuc, M4, M29, NGC253 and a few selected stars - dead centre each time. Fantastic:D:D
Drive noise is quite high during high speed slewing, but barely audible at slow speeds and while tracking.
Didn't actually get to do much observation, since this was a "driving lesson", and there was a lot of passing cloud, but 47 Tuc had central mass stars beautifully resolved at 64x, and other stars I briefly looked at were pinpoint sharp. Hope for another run tonight to get a feel for the optical performance.
There is one puzzle - there was a double ended spanner included with the accessories but no mention of what this is for in the manual.
Very happy so far :2thumbs: