Is it me, the moon or my scope?

[CJ (Chris)]

I used the 10mm in my Heritage with reasonable results. Is it by any chance dirty? If your kids got hold of it, and they are anything like my kids were, there's a good chance its got cake, jam, butter, snot etc etc on it!

[inertia8 (Australia)]

That 10mm is very difficult to use with glasses on, even with the rubber eyecup folded down I need to hold my glasses lense and squish it close to my eye to take in the full field of view. I find it more comfortable to get it close to focus and then take my glasses off and refocus a smidge.

I would suggest focusing on a distant tree (200m-300m away) with the 25mm and then switching to the 10mm and try to focus. I just tried it then and the point at which the 10mm focused when looking at the number of peaks or ridges of the helical focuser's "screw thread" was 4 visible (not including the half sized ridge closest to the "nut" moulding) and the 5th peak was present right at the lip of the focuser housing.

I'm sure it's been said, however, make sure that the sun is behind your back, preferably tucked away behind clouds or a tree or the wall of your house!

[BilliGoatsGruff (Billi)]

Ozstar- there is an astronomy group for our region I've bern meaning to get in touch with them, but it seems that life keeps getting in the way. there may have been turbulence. We had a lot of wind and fast moving low cloud so anything is possible.

Malcolm- I'm not overly worried about using the 10mm. I've barely used my scope as it is and I definitely have a lot to look at with the 25mm. I just thought I would try it out to see if I could focus on anything but it's still giving me the pips. It's not essential thought, the 25mm lets me see more than I ever dreamed of.

Chris- it doesn't look dirty, so far the sticky jam fingers have stayed away

Inertia- I take my glasses off when I'm using my scope. Now that I've worked out how to use the focusing wheel properly the quality of the images don't suffer. If I cover my left eye and look with my right I don't get any eye strain. When the weather calms down I'll head outside and have a look to see where the focuser is sitting.

Overall the 10mm isn't a necessity for me. Chances are it may never get used anyway.

[BilliGoatsGruff (Billi)]

I finally got the 10mm to focus. It works a treat on planets. I do think that you lose some image quality with the stars though.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Well done Billi
What did you end up doing to get focus?

Malcolm

[BilliGoatsGruff (Billi)]

I'm not sure if I had it zoomed in too far, but after wiggling the focus wheel a bit I managed to get it to focus. If the skies are clear tomorrow I'll try the moon again. It's very exciting