There's only one thing I can do. Pack it up for now and wait for a time in the future when my brother can help me drive it down somewhere that others can check it out at night (maybe an observatory?). I've gone through everything repeatedly and it all seems fine, the telescope just has no ability to gather light whatsoever. It's as if there is no parabola on the primary mirror and it acts like a cheap $2 one. I can get into the darkest place I can find, and have spent many hours most nights trying since the last new moon, but all I see is nothing but stars, not even the slightest hint of anything. Just a faint view of the Orion nebula. As for the finderscope, I check that regularly and it only takes a few seconds to line up if I bump it. If it's too dark and I cant find a suitable target, I just use a structure of the moon as a quick aiming point. It's too simple and easy to mess up
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Your mirror could be a lemon - a terribly poorly figured mirror, which slipped thru GSO's quality assurance system.
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That is the only reasonable solution I can come up with
. Explains it all perfectly. It reflects fine, it doesn't gather light any more than my bathroom mirror would.