Using a C14?

[Terry B]

Dear All
I have started to use the orange tube C14 at our local club.
(see http://www.unentas.armidale.com/history.htm )
It is an old scope and has limited function.
It has a good RA drive that seems reasonably accurate. There are motors in both directions and 2 different slewing speeds.
The problem I have with it is aiming it at all. I can release the clutches and aim it at anything I can see in the finder with little problems but star hopping seems very difficult. There is only a limited amount of travel on the worm in dec. I can use the hand controller within that limit but then would need to release the clutch and lose where I am aiming. Is there some trick to using this scope?

[jase (Jason)]

Hi Terry,
When you say there is only limited amount of travel on the DEC worm, are you hearing any unusual noise just prior to the limit being reach?

[astroron (Ron)]

Have a look inside the arm that has the thread on it,you will find that there is a bar that goes up and down when you use the dec button, you will probably find that it is wound down to the bottom of the thread.
Loosen of the locking catch then using the manual control knob wind the bar to the centre of the thread, then you will have equal travel.
I hope this helps. astroron

[Terry B]

Originally Posted by astroron

Have a look inside the arm that has the thread on it,you will find that there is a bar that goes up and down when you use the dec button, you will probably find that it is wound down to the bottom of the thread.
Loosen of the locking catch then using the manual control knob wind the bar to the centre of the thread, then you will have equal travel.
I hope this helps. astroron

No, I realised that the arm needs to be in the middle of the worm. It is just that the worm is relatively short so it is limited in how far you can move the scope on dec before having to release the clutches and re centre the worm. I think I will have to learn how to use the digital setting circles on the scope instead of star hopping. I am out of practice with doing this as my scope has GOTO which makes you much lazier but more efficient.

[Lester]

Hi Terry,

I have got a Orange 8" Celestron that is similar. Release the Dec then move the scope near to where you want to be and lock it; then use the slow motion to centre the object.

[Outbackmanyep]

G'Day Terry!
I'll be at the next meeting, if yur there i can show you how it all works!
I showed Margaret how to use the Astro-Master as well, the bar on all SCT's are meant to work in the middle of the worm, the problem with that set-up in the dome is that the scope should never be used to slew to anything outside the finderscope field of view, you'll have to unlock the Dec axis and lock it when in the vicinity of the object yur locating then use the slew buttons for fine adjustments!
I'll show you how to use the Astro-Master, aligning and finding, as i have the same Astro-master for my telescope. (had to fix the cabling on the C14 as students ripped the cables off before)
Make sure the finderscope is on top of the tube and not located underneath it as the mount needs to be rotated to flip the finderscope underneath (which ends up ripping the cables for the Astro-Master out!)

Cheers!
Chris

[Terry B]

Hi Chris
Sadly I won't be at the next meeting even though I helped write the questions for the quiz.
I would love to be shown how to use the astro-master. The cabling has been ripped out again but only the extension cable. You can plug the original cable into the encoder but it is a bit short.
On a different note, I got the SBIG CCD to work having installed the drivers on my laptop. I tried some simple imaging but have found that the polar allignment is far from perfect. The RA tracking seemed pretty good. The gears still seem OK as long as you lock both RA clamps. The image wandered pretty quickly up the screen allowing only about 10 sec exposures. This is pretty useless. I will have to work out which direction the mount needs to be moved and how it could be achieved. It is bolted down with pretty big bolts and I couldn't see an easy way of shimming it. Any suggestions?

[Outbackmanyep]

I'd have to have a look at the aligning, the pier is a prefabbed one and i dont think the base was engineered as good as it could have been to allow for fine tuning.
I'll have a look at the next meeting!
I downloaded the drivers for that CCD camera last year and asked to borrow it but they said no cos of insurance reasons and as you know i'm 62kms away! LOL
I did get the thing to work, i also downloaded the ST-7 manual, i can leave it with margaret at the meeting if you see her regularly in Armidale, she can pass it on to you.....
When i'm there for the quiz ( hope you left me some easy answers! )
i'll have a look at the alignment using the drift method and see how far it has to move or how far it can move, i'll also see if they elongated the bolt holes on the pier base, maybe we'd have to do some engineering ourselves!? hehe
Cheers!

[Terry B]

Chris
I have the manual and the one for the filter wheel. Good luck with the pier.