Thanks Damien
I struggle with my stock standard Meade finder scope. the screws that are available to align it to the telescope are soo hard to use! I always have to spend at least 20min trying to get my finder scope alined to the the same object my telescope is looking at (use the neighbors antenna or a distant street light for aligning)
Have a great weekend mate
Quote:
Originally Posted by redbeard
What I do is use a laser pointer mounted on the scope. This needs to be aligned perfectly with the scope so they point at exactly the same thing. I turn on the laser and use the hand control box to centre the object that the laser pointer is pointing at. If that still does not work, I then carefully remove the camera, put in the eyepiece, centre object, (even if out of focus, can still centre), and carefully put the camera back. Sometimes this take a bit of trial and error. I have a 10" LX200 and another way is to use the guide scope on top of the Meade with it's own camera, and use some image capture software to show the image on the screen. Again you will have to align the guide scope perfectly with the main scope, but this can help alot if all is aligned.
I always struggle a little with finding the planets but once you get it, keep it in the FOV. I have to setup my scope each time as I don't have a obs, so some nights are better than others, if you have an observatory, things are always easier.
Another thing is if you have an aligned finder scope check it has a cross hair in the middle because centering an object in the FOV by eye without the cross hair, is quite hard to be accurate.
Again, the focal reducer is not really used for planets because it makes them too small and less signal, use a powermate, or a barlow to magnify. Using anything that magnifies the image will make the image even harder to get into the FOV as there is more magnification.
Another thing to try to find the planets could be to use the focal reducer with the camera to find the planet, it should be easier as you have a wider FOV, then take out the focal reducer and hopefully still close to FOV.
Glad you are seeing something!
Cheers,
Damien.
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