[Dodie (Damien)]

G'Day all,

I have just bought my first telescope on Friday night from AstroPetes, a 10" sky watcher dob. He didn't have any collimators that night but I thought I'd still give it shot.
The only thing I thought worth trying to look at by the time I got home and set it up, was Saturn. Well it was pretty much a blurry ball, not real fuzzy, just not in focus and no real detail. Played around with focusing and the 25mm and 10mm ep's.

I put it down to collimation. Went out and bought an Orion Lasermate Deluxe 2 collimator, set about collimation. It was off a bit, so tweaked away until I thought it was all good. Went to view Saturn again that night and it was pretty much the same. Not really any different.

Tonight the moon is out and thought it'd be much easier to view. Same problem as with Saturn. Just blurry, no detail whatsoever.

In all, I've probably played around with collimation around a dozen times, each time I thought it was pretty much spot on, maybe out by a fraction or so. Every time same deal, blurry moon. The only time I have seen any detail is when I 'piggybacked' a 10mm EP on top of the 25mm that came with it. Also had the 'moon cover' on and off too.

Maybe my collimation IS off, but thought that I'd still be able to see some detail even if it was out a bit?! Or perhaps I've played with something that I shouldn't of..

I'll give Pete a call tomorrow, see what his thoughts are. Probably won't get a chance to take it back till Friday or Saturday so he can have a look/play to figure out where I'm going wrong..

Thoughts anyone for the mean time?!

Thanks,
Damien