Hi Kitty, I'm really glad you could make it. It's always a lot of fun seeing someone get their first look at Saturn through a telescope. And btw to IIS!
Eric, hope you're enjoying the steaming QLD summer. Catch you next time around.
After the much needed guidance from the IIS gathering at Mt Waverley, I am pleased to say I found Saturn with my Scope the next evening, from my backyard. I was quite pleased with myself! kitty
I will always remember my first peek at Saturn.... it was though 1.8" telescope (44x).. This special feeling was almost... spiritual ? (!!)
Wel. it kept me sticking with this hobby till today :-)
How about gathering again on, say, March 10th? Moon will be in last quarter, and the next day will be Sunday, so no need to go home earlier to get some sleep before work next day?
How about gathering again on, say, Feb 10th? Moon will be in last quarter, and the next day will be Sunday, so no need to go home earlier to get some sleep before work next day?
....and I should have better collimated 30x100s then. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I had a gusty wind blowing, but I worked on the collimation yesterday. Yes they were out vertically, enough to be the cause of the struggle my brain has had to feel comfortable with the view. Probably a tweak would have done it, but by the time I'd fiddled, I'd wound the two set screws right out and right in to see how it all works . I found the active adjustment of the prisms is only around one turn of the set screws. Anyway, now I know and I think I have them right. But I think it collimates at different places, depending on the distance to the object? I started at about 300m, then moved to about 800m. So what about a infinite distance? It would be hard to do at night - unless some can point me to a bright horizontal straight line in the sky?
Erick,
recently I went through the collimation procedure with my 7x50 binos (I bought a pair on a flee matket for $15).
First, I drafted two circles on a piece of paper, the distance between circles being the exact distance between eyepieces centres.
Then, I pointed the binos towards Sun, and have projected images on that paper. (with circles).
By rotating two excenter rings around each objective lens it is possible to move individual objective lenses (visible as moving of the projections relative to one another) to the certain extent. The idea is to have both projected images to be coincident with drawn circles on the paper. Sometimes, the extent of that movement is not enough, if the prisms are knocked off too far from the position.. then obviously this must be sorted out first.
After possibly 1/2 hours of fiddling, now I have a perfectly collimated binos :-)
They have to be collimated like this (at infinite distance), so for the closer objects you would see them as being closer (binocular vision software in our brain takes care of this)
Last edited by bojan; 26-02-2007 at 09:59 AM.
Reason: some typos
Thanks Bojan, for that approach - I had read about it. I don't think I'll point the 30x at the sun - might be a bit too much heat in the eyepieces?
However, I had detailed instructions from the supplier to follow - it's just they didn't mention that the screws had been set in place after the last collimation with silastic. It took a bit of digging and scratching, under a tough rubber covering that was vigorously trying to snap back into place, to find out what type of set screw it was - turned out to be flathead, thank goodness - a bit of silastic left there was not a problem (compared to a allen key grubscrew). I think it's the 30x that was the greatest challenge - small movements in screw gave large movements in image, let alone trying to monitor both images with my head some 10 cm behind the eyepieces with the wind whistling around the binos on my dodgy mount. Next time, I'll gently clamp them to a fence or other immovable object.
Thank goodness horizontal collimation was fine - I'd hate to have to have started adjusting the back two setscrews as well
And, I've added the required screwdriver to my kit I take when I go out viewing, so I can tweak it after setup, if needed.
Dave, I've been tempted to come down and do a David and Goliath by setting up my binoculars beside those huge refractors and reflectors!
I see Bojan has suggested the same date. I also wanted to go to SVAA the following weekend, for an evening only.
Let's see what interest there is for the locals in the SE suburbs in gathering locally at Mt Waverley.
By the way, Dave, I've been wondering how dark your skies get at the Briars - surely you've huge glow to the north and west - maybe less so south and east?
By the way, Dave, I've been wondering how dark your skies get at the Briars - surely you've huge glow to the north and west - maybe less so south and east?
Hi Erick,
Well we don't have a great sky North or North West, but it's not to bad.
Looking South is fine of course. Steve maybe better in giving an insight to the sky there. Anyway anytime you may want to come down as for anyone in Melbourne can do so. Just give me a pm if you are.
The Briars is a much better place to observe from than here. And the MPAS has an 18" scope.
Bojan, when I can spare a long late night for observing (usually only on weekends) I tend to drive to a darker site. On the 10th the MPAS meeting would be the place to be for astronomy.
And btw 
to IIS!
kitty
Late meeting kept me at work ridiculously late.
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