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1st Light With New Scope


Guest dindy

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Guest dindy

Hi All, Could not decide what part of forum to post in so sorry if wrong section.

Not been on forum since end of last year as had to put buying telescope on hold. Washing machine packed up 10 days before Xmas, sods law, but normally it is the kettle!! Then something was dropped into bath and a very small crack appeared. Nothing really to be concerned about but after 20 years the whole suite needed changing, just where does the time go. Any way next week vinyl flooring being put down and that is the end.

I was debating what telescope to buy but a Evo 8” less than a year old and only used about 6 times came up. Went to view it and it was in pristine condition. Owned by an elderly man who just could not manage it with his bad back and decided astronomy was not for him. Come complete with default accessories + 9mm Celestron X-Cel LX eyepiece, Polarising filter, Revelation 1.25 reducer,Celestron torch and one of those huge air puffers they use on archaeological digs!

 

Had a play indoors to familiarize myself and wait for a clear night. In the meantime I made a dew shield out of a yoga mat. I had already set up the red dot finder during day which either worked or it did not, very frustrating. The night was going to be clear so I was ready to give it a go. I set up scope well before it got dark to acclimatize and I must admit I got out a bit early, 10pm and it was not really dark. I first just manually went to the moon and that was very clear. I wanted first to check collimation  so I defocused the moon and collimation was way out but then I remembered somewhere only to use a star. Went to a star, defocused and it was not that bad really. The diffraction rings seemed ok and the shadow of the secondary mirror was just slightly off centre. I thought in for a penny in for a pound and try and get it dead centre. I could not move the screws or should I say the screws seemed very tight so I decided not to play with it at this particular time.

I then selected 2 star manual and cantered on Polaris and aligned or at least it said successful. I then hit a snag, the second batch of alignment stars. I have only looked at stars in the winter not summer and only with the naked eye as this is my 1st scope. What I am used to seeing in winter was generally not there in midsummer!!  Got to be honest and say I was completely lost and needed to do some homework. I then done one star aligement, again on Polaris and then pressed Moon to goto. It did not, the moon was about SSW and the scope slewed to SWW, miles out! Decided then to give up as I needed to be up at 4:45 am and now it was 11:50 and I knew I would not be able to sleep.

 

So what have I learnt? While looking at Polaris through red dot finder I was on my knees and cricked my neck which still hurts. That means for me at least a 9 x 50 right angled finder, perhaps Celestron.

A one star alignment is only good really so I have read for someone who only wants a ½ hour session. I think what they mean is align first then if you only want to look at say Jupiter you can slew straight to it. Having said that it takes no longer than a few mins to put mount on tripod and ota on mount. You do not even have to turn the scope on just loosen the clutches and use as a manual scope and nudge nudge to keep star/planet in view. If you do not want to do this it takes less than a minute to put date & time in etc. Just one star align and then slew to the star/planet of your choosing, if not accurate aligned just use hand control to keep it in view.

Two star auto is the best not 2 star manual, we will wait & see.

 

I hooked up my handset to the mount with no ota on my computer desk and started off the alignment process. The object was to write down all the alignment stars for July, there are 16. Then set date for August, Sept & October and added the extra stars that come up on alignment setting. There may be more or less as I go on but a good start. I then went into Stellarium and searched each star and also roughly where it was in sky at 11pm. Typed all this out and now got a list. May be a silly way of doing it but at least until I get to know where they are it will be a help. I will have laptop with stellarium with me next time I try but it gives me a head start.

I got to really try the 3 eyepieces I got with scope 9, 13, & 40mm. I am sure somewhere I read that the 40 mm although not bad is too big for the 8” with around 32 mm being the better size?? Most but not all are very disappointed with the supplied 13 mm. So later on maybe some better quality eyepieces but which one as yet no idea.

One think I will buy even for occasional use is a 2 x Barlow, probably a Revelation as they seem to get good reviews and not overpriced. An ironing chair is on the books and also something to keep the ota in. I will not be spending upwards of £300 on a Celestron  or Pelican case so have to think about that one.   Anyway I will give the scope another go as soon as I can and hope I have learned from my mistakes.

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Hi Peter, that's a good report, I like the matter of fact way you have wrote it up ?

You are on a big learning curve, we have all been where you are at at the moment, and we are still learning too...

You are jumping all the unforeseen hurdles as you come to them and getting ready for your next viewing session, so good for you! ?

You are obviously very keen, so I hope you are more successful on your next go. Success will spur you on... Just keep persisting and you will soon be getting wow's and a 'buzz' when you find stuff... ?,

You have a great scope, you will get to see some amazing things! Globular clusters, open clusters, nebulosities, galaxies, the moon, planets... Etc. 

So keep us informed on how well you do next time, tell us how your eyepieces work out and what you get to see etc. :)

Cheers! ??

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a 9x50 and it is great!

 

Not wishing to sound critical (I made the same mistake myself) but you will be up and running more quickly with binoculars. Many objects look better in binoculars anyway.

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