Optic Nerve
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Clear outside app
Optic Nerve replied to fullmoon's topic in Getting Started General Help and Advice
I've found it a bit unreliable. It's sometimes accurate but other times I've been out in the garden with completely clear skies above while Clearoutside assures me there is 100% cloud cover. I prefer the Met Office cloud cover map (UK) -
Hey so the clouds finally cleared and I got a good look at the moon tonight. I'd say the view I had was a bit better than before, but definitely no worse. Not sure if that is due to the attempted improvement of the collimation, or the fact the moon was higher in the sky when I looked tonight, I've read that objects do look better when higher up. But then I didnt give the telescope proper time to cool down to the outside temperature tonight whereas I did the other night so I was dreading worse views but ended up pleasantly surprised. I do need to get the secondary mirror right at some point but I've decided to hold off on doing it until I'm more familiar with the scope. For now I just want to get more comfortable using it. Will looking through the cheshire and realigning the doughnut on top of the black dot every few sessions keep the collimation at roughly its current quality?
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Yeah probably, that seems to be the consensus in everything I've read about collimation. A massive headache to start with then it just clicks in your head and becomes straightforward. It hasn't put me off the hobby, although I've decided that if the view I have now ends up being about as good as what I had before, I'll just leave it at that for now. Spend time familiarizing myself with the scope and observing what I can, and then return to collimation after studying the guides until I'm more confident in what I'm doing. I'm in the north of England
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Thats what I'm going to do. And yeah I'm not too bothered about getting it exactly right, I thought the views I had initially (with the secondary way off) were actually good. By the way now that ive reangled the mirrors will my aim be off? I struggled to get my finder scope precisely aligned, the red dot had to be pointed to the moon and then about an inch to left. Will I maybe find its not in the right spot now, maybe instead its a bit to the right/down/up from the red dot?
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Its clear skies tonight so I'm going to have another look at the moon and see what difference my tinkering has made, hopefully I wont have made it any worse, I'd take that as a win at this stage. I try to read through these guides but they are really confusing. I get the feeling collimation is a bit like tying your shoes or learning to ride a bike, difficult to actually talk someone through it but straightforward once you understand. My only worry there is I fell on my bike loads when learning! If the views I have tonight are similar ish to what I had before I'll be ok with that and then leave a proper collimation until ive gone over the guides again and again and it clicks. Its a bit of a frustrating start to the hobby, but it hasnt dampened my interests in looking up to space, its just a bit of a blow to my ego that I am basically being outsmarted by a mirror
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Yes in UK. Does what I have now look better or worse than what I had before? Waiting for tonight when theres clear skies to see for myself. At this stage I'm just hoping for something like what I had before. I think everything looks a bit closer to what it should be but I've a bad feeling I missed something, if the secondary is rotated/tilted I guess that means any object I look at will appear tilted too?
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This is way to complicated for me. Sorry if that sounds stupid and I appreciate that people have put in the time to reply and try and help, but when it comes to altering the secondary mirror I mucked it up before and struggled to get things back to, I couldn't see either of the mirrors at one stage. I'm worried sick that tinkering with it much more and I'll end up mucking it up completely. I was ok with the views I had before, so at this stage I'll happily settle for an alignment that's about as good as that. Is it possible to look at what I had before, and what I had now, and say if I've at least made some progress in the right direction? First two images are what it was before, through the Cheshire and also through the focuser with no eyepieces attached. This gave a view of the moon that I thought was quite good. https://imgur.com/a/YvShjOV https://imgur.com/a/H0joaLO The second two images are what I have now. https://imgur.com/a/uDitdAO https://imgur.com/a/lEm1CZj
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I wasn't sure, it did seem to look more aligned than the first couple of pics and certainly that last one where the mirrors are totally out of view. The couple of things that concern me is that I can't see the three clips for the primary mirror although I do seem able to see the mirror itself completely in the frame now. And also, that picture was taken with the cheshire put into the viewer and screwed into place. But it's not firmly in place, the cheshire can move a bit if pressure is applied which makes it look a bit less aligned than that.
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Does this look any better https://imgur.com/a/uDitdAO I can't see the three mirror clips for the primary mirror though. Sorry about the image spam by the way. I know this should be simple enough and I dare say it will be eventually, after enough attempts it will just "click" and become second nature but it's a bit confusing right now.