Sounds like you had a fantastic eveining must have been a great first view for your mate.

Regards

Kevin

Aye it's a funny ol' world ! Had a lot of fun with the cosmos last night. You can so easily forget how nice it is to put your eye up to the scope instead of focusing via a screen.

The barlowed 4mm was a huge surprise tho ! Just to get it to focus !!! I hardly ever get the chance to use the 4mm alone !

I stuck a 5mm Pentax XW and a Tal 3x barlow into my FlexTube for a look at the Moon.

Rubbish view really but it was 900x magnification.

Well I took the plunge and set to the collimation again to try and improve things but first off wanted to know what the problem was.

I nicked a 1/2" St st ball bearing from my little girls toy box ( Magnetix) and placed in a prominant spot on the south facing wall at the end of the garden then approx' 35m awy focused in on the "spot" from the sun, zero'd in further using the 4x and the 2x barlows stacked and the 4mm TMB/Burgess then the SPC900NC

Fantastic patterens but clearly not right !!

Tonight I tried to sort it out but without the sun a bit difficult- rigged up a super bright white led torch and some tubing and an old EP lens from some spotting bins and then focused the light from about a metre away onto the ball bearing--- phew !! Well I now "know " my scope that's for sure !!

So, yes Ron, I think it was a collimation issue (re the ghosting on Saturn, not thin high cloud) but certainly not one that will bother me again- another Dar Art cracked !!

Karlo