Impatient
I've had the new 'scope for almost two weeks and it's yet to see first light. There are troubles.
The 'scope is a mutt. The OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) includes a re-surfaced mirror that wasn't centre marked and between the primary mirror and the secondary, the whole she-bang is so far out of collimation as to be a sick joke. To fix this, I'll need to dismount the mirror cell and mark centre (long job, lots of room for error) and then make a 1.25" eye centre (not difficult) and then spend the whole of maybe 30 minutes collimating the OTA.
The mount is another matter. The basic castings are from a very reputable company, but there are a few things either odd or missing. Odd: the Polaris orientation reticle looks like it's been gently sand blasted. In addition, it will not turn when I turn the transit ring. Add the final joker: the part that illuminates the reticle is missing.
Oh, and one of the assemblies is mounted upside down... meaning that the telescope had been mounted upside down in it's rings... which meant that it had to point backwards to work. Ack!
Now, I can't do any long exposures until ALL of this is corrected, but bright targets can be done with short exposures and stacked in post production to correct for the inevitable drift caused by so many additive problems.
So, as long as sleep doesn't overtake me, I'm going to attempt to bring first light to the camera tonight. There are two juicy bright targets out there: Moon and Jupiter. Jupiter should be clear of the big maple from midnight on... the moon a few hours after that.
I'll post pix if I have any success.
The 'scope is a mutt. The OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) includes a re-surfaced mirror that wasn't centre marked and between the primary mirror and the secondary, the whole she-bang is so far out of collimation as to be a sick joke. To fix this, I'll need to dismount the mirror cell and mark centre (long job, lots of room for error) and then make a 1.25" eye centre (not difficult) and then spend the whole of maybe 30 minutes collimating the OTA.
The mount is another matter. The basic castings are from a very reputable company, but there are a few things either odd or missing. Odd: the Polaris orientation reticle looks like it's been gently sand blasted. In addition, it will not turn when I turn the transit ring. Add the final joker: the part that illuminates the reticle is missing.
Oh, and one of the assemblies is mounted upside down... meaning that the telescope had been mounted upside down in it's rings... which meant that it had to point backwards to work. Ack!
Now, I can't do any long exposures until ALL of this is corrected, but bright targets can be done with short exposures and stacked in post production to correct for the inevitable drift caused by so many additive problems.
So, as long as sleep doesn't overtake me, I'm going to attempt to bring first light to the camera tonight. There are two juicy bright targets out there: Moon and Jupiter. Jupiter should be clear of the big maple from midnight on... the moon a few hours after that.
I'll post pix if I have any success.