Can you collimate with a SLEDGEHAMMER?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Glad everything's worked out and now you can actually use your scope. Plus, that's not too bad a piccie for a point and shoot setup!!!.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Renormalised,

I think this is about the limit of detail I can get with movie mode. I took some 7MP Jpegs which were overexposed but showed up some more details as well as 3 of the moons, so I think I will concentrate on trying to get as much out of this method as I can before sliding down the slippery prime focus slope with a webcam or DSLR.

Cheers

Chris

[programmer]

Well done, pity you had to get a lemon first up.. Nice pic.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Originally Posted by programmer

Well done, pity you had to get a lemon first up.. Nice pic.

Thanks Programmer,

Yes it was a pity, but everything is a learning curve!

The other good news is that all my eyepieces now give GREAT views, its surprising how much a little bit of focus and loss of abberations improves the view. I was impressed at the quality of even the standard plossl's that came with the scope and the 10mm 68 Deg wideview EP got me in nice and close for imaging, but I did use the ED 12.5mm to take this shot as its the duck's nuts of the family.

By the way, how is your Argo Navis going? Still have that new car feel to it?

Chris

[programmer]

Originally Posted by Screwdriverone

Thanks Programmer,

Yes it was a pity, but everything is a learning curve!

The other good news is that all my eyepieces now give GREAT views, its surprising how much a little bit of focus and loss of abberations improves the view. I was impressed at the quality of even the standard plossl's that came with the scope and the 10mm 68 Deg wideview EP got me in nice and close for imaging, but I did use the ED 12.5mm to take this shot as its the duck's nuts of the family.

By the way, how is your Argo Navis going? Still have that new car feel to it?

Chris

Good to hear about your EP's.. I Must admit I'll never be able to go back after getting better EP's..

Argo is going great, but being in Melbourne.... 'nuff said.

[Terry B]

Well done and good to see that you can now use the scope.
The sad thing is that someone else with a blossoming interest in astronomy will buy a similar scope. be very disappointed in the view, put it in a cupboard and never go back to astronomy.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi Terry,

I was originally quite happy with the view through the scope, the problem started when I tried to collimate it.

The disadvantage of this scope is that it is very finicky when it comes to getting it spot on. The corrector lens is probably the issue as it magnifies everything by 2 to get the 1000mm FL out of a 500mm tube. I do still think that I definitely had something wrong with the original OTA though.

I now know that even when the cheshire is bang on for collimation and I also used a laser, looks can be deceiving and I am so glad that I learned (with lots of help from IISers) how to do a star test and tweak the final collimation from there. Even the new tube "looked" right and was really only about 1mm out in two directions from the TINY adjustments I made on the star test last night.

My advice from all this and from a beginner's perspective is to buy a 6-12" dob and enjoy the views. If there is an issue with collimation, it should be a doddle to fix on one of these scopes.

Chris

[Jeff]

Thank God!

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Jeff.

Thanks for all your help too.

Made me laugh, you did!

Chris

[erick (Eric)]

Originally Posted by Screwdriverone

Hi All,

Well, can anyone guess who is a happy chappy today?

Good news Chris! Congrats!

Nice pic as well

[programmer]

I think we'll have to freeze this thread now that you're all happy! The title is a bit misleading now

[astro_nutt]

Hi Chris!
After following this thread, I can honestly say how great it is to have so many people offering to help out in one's crisis..
Enjoy the views!!