[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

Sadly, the final decision is that the FirstScope will be going back for a refund.

I love the idea behind this scope, I think the concept is great and had it worked as intended, or perhaps as expected, it would have been brilliant as a true First Scope either for children, or those who wanted to test the waters of backyard astronomy with absolute minimal outlay. And it really is the cutest scope I have ever seen! I just can't find another word that fits, they are incredibly cute - everyone should at least see one of these live in a store somewhere to understand just how much appeal this scope has.

I REALLY REALLY wanted this scope to work, and have done my best to make it work without resorting to redesigning and rebuilding it.

But it doesn't work ..... not well enough anyway. It's frustrating to see that with some pretty minor design improvements this could easily have lived up to it's expectations, but the manuacturer (as noted previously NOT Celestron but a chinese company) did NOT take those small final steps to create a great little scope. Such a shame.....

So what happened after my best tweaking, in practical viewing terms: well, nothing. I just can't sort out it's weird focus issue, nor the chromatic aberration, nor it's collimation - and therefore it would be just as bad a scope for a beginner as any of the other wobbletronic cheapo types would be.

On a reflector there's 4 different adjustments that must be correct in order to properly achieve collimation:

1: Changing the position of the secondary mirror up and down the OTA lengthwise, so that it is positioned directly underneath the focussor

2: Changing the position of the secondary mirror across the width of the OTA so you can make sure it is centred within the diameter of the OTA.

3: Changing the position / reflecting angle of the secondary to ensure that it is facing properly with respect to both the primary mirror and the focussor.

4: Changing the angle of the primary mirror itself so make sure that it is facing correctly back at the secondary mirror.

The Firstscope scope quite simply is designed in such a way that it cannot be adjusted as per 1 and 4 above - and in the case of my particular unit these 2 non-adjustable factors MAY be supposed to be correct and not need adjusting, but they are both somehow positioned wrong!

Guided by my laser collimator I adjusted this scope as best I could, trying to work around the lack of adjustments, hampered even further by the fact that the secondary mirror wasn't even glued on straight (or level perhaps I should say) to it's holder.

So when it came time to test last night I waited until nearly midnight so that both the Moon and Jupiter would be high and viewable through as little atmosphere as possible, to give the scope it's best chance of performing as well as it could. I tried the 2 supplied eyepieces, and a GSO plossl, and a Meade plossl.

And the view in every case was every bit as bad as the first night!

Jupiter still has strong colour fringing around it, and I can confirm that there definitly is NO internal lens in the focussor at all, as Eric said previously. Combined with the lack of collimation, this gives Jupiter a vivid blusih-purple peacock tail effect when it flares sideways enormously while attempting to achieve focus.

Further to the mystery, the colour fringing was visible through every eyepiece I tried in it and I know for a fact that the GSO and Meade ep's don't cause this effect. Where is it coming from? Stuffed if I know, I suspect off the edge of the secondary mirror somehow.

The laser collimator showed that the secondary mirror is quite simply positioned almost a centimetre too far down the barrel and therefore too far under the focussor, and I'm sure that some of the reflected primary aperture is being lost over the top of the secondary as a result. The laser dot was far from centred on the secondary, it was more like 1/4 of the way down from the "top" of the secondary, and as noted above there is NO adjustment for this type of positioning in this scopes design.

The moon still had that strange "this side is focussed, this side isn't" thing happening that will not go away no matter HOW carefully you adjust it. Poddibly attributable to the secondary position again. Painful, regardless what causes it.

MAYBE the particular scope I have is a "Friday afternoon" unit, maybe some others are better. I don't know, but I wouldn't risk it again unless they let me bring the laser collimator in to test and tweak the scope right there in the store before buying it.