Here is an image of Saturn from 2:00am on 24th February as part of a practice for tonight’s multiple transits – I only hope I can stay awake!
Tak Mewlon 180 F12.
Televue x3 Barlow
DBK21AF04 colour CCD camera
Stack of 526 frames from 900.
The bad news is that after this shot, whilst attempting to collimate the Mewlon, I snapped off the head from one of the Bob’s knobs.
However, it looks like there is a socket head cap screw underneath the knob head, so I’m hoping that I can get to this with an allen key and remove it later today.
Well, well, well….what a small, yet wonderful astro community we have here, on Ice In Space and in particular, in SE Qld. After posting the above image of Saturn and mentioning my disaster with a Bob’s knob shearing off, (head only), I was contacted by Peter Marples and Tony Surma Hawes to be informed that Sirius Optics at Underwood (Ron) has a set of Mewlon Bob’s knobs in stock! Thanks guys!
Since my original post, I have temporarily re-fitted the original Tak collimation bolts and will pick up the spare set of Bob’s knobs when I next pop in to see Ron and Peter at Sirius.
Nothing is ever easy though. I found the Tak 2” adapter “rocked” in the Moonlite focuser due to the shallow depth and grub screw cut out in the Tak 2” adapter. This meant that the collimation kept “changing” as the adapter wobbled in the focuser.
Finally, after cobbling together a series of T2 to 43mm to 54mm to goodness knows what step up/step down rings and adapters, I managed to fit the Tak collimating ‘scope to a deep 2” adapter which seated firmly in the Moonlite focuser.
I’ve just finished touching up the collimation using the Tak Collimating ‘Scope so hopefully, a small tweak or two under dark skies should get me collimated again, if the clouds cooperate that is!
Sounds like Murphy's Law is alive and well and applies to capturing rare astronomical events.
Regards
Trevor
Hi Trevor,
Many a true word spoken in jest! Yes – it seems that Murphy is very active today….I tied the Allen key onto the mount with a length of fishing line such that if it accidentally dropped inside the OTA, it would not hit the mirror.
However, what I had not counted on, was a large explosion and blinding white flash as the local sub station blew its stack – no power! The power returned temporarily for a few minutes before dropping out again and as you can see from this post, it has just now been restored, hopefully more permanently.
So, what do you reckon; should I risk it and go outside to fire the rig up?
Nahh, it seems tonight is a night to be indoors, albeit under candle light when the power went off with a kabooom!!!
Banks of clouds are now scudding across the skies making it a little frustrating to collimate using a Barlow and the webcam. Now you see the defocused star, now you don’t! Oh well, time for a cup of tea and maybe Murphy might just bugger off to bed and leave me in peace! LOL!
After replacing the Mewlon collimating bolts, struggling through two power outages, dodging cloud banks to tweak my collimation, struggling with fatigue from the previous 3:00am day/nighter, I figured that someone was hinting that I should pack up and have an early night.
So, after finally collimating between cloud sets, I slewed to a lowish Saturn to be greeted with poor seeing so I had a quick visual peek and managed to see the silhouette of Titan and its shadow on the disc of Saturn, before packing up and having an early night.
I awoke to complete cloud cover although Tony (Firstlight) seems to have fared better, just a few kms south of me.
