Fraser G

Thank you very much - will get my calipers out tomorrow morning and order the parts 🙂

I have bought an old and dirty Visionary Mira Ceti off eBay, in the hopes I can clean it up and give it a new lease of life. So far, I’ve taken it to bits and cleaned the parts, the mirrors took some polishing but are now OK (some small blemishes I can live with). However the part that connects eyepieces with the focus tube is missing and I’m not sure what I need to but to replace it. The focus tube measures about 40mm across. Is this a T-thread on the end of the focus tube? Many thanks in advance!

Thanks again, Vlaiv. Not sure how I can try option 1 - need to check into this to see how to attach with the lens (another adapter I guess). Although I am now thinking of looking for a better scope (OTA) and attaching it to my existing goto mount - limited funds mean a new scope and mount are out of reach, but maybe I could afford just the scope... I will be joining a local astro society soon, so looking at things realistically - I will take what equipment I have to the next meeting and see what the members have to say/advise on. I might just stick with what I've got - poor as I suppose it's turned out to be - and learn from them while saving for something worthwhile. Really appreciate the responses.

Thanks, everyone; @vlaiv, I am using option (2) - I tried (4) but couldn't get any focus and don't have any extension tubes, which I have heard may be needed. Thanks for the other tips, I'll try them next time I get a chance. The moon's getting higher at the moment so hopefully a few more nights and I'll get a better environment for round #2!

Oh dear, I wish I'd taken a good look on this forum before I bought that LCM114 a few years ago. "Bit of a turd" seems to be a consensus view Am I wasting my time with it?

Hi, I am a total beginner and am just starting out in astrophotography. I've got the basic equipment - Celestron LCM114, a new to me Canon 650D and a variety of lenses. I have the telescope connected to PC via Wifi, and the camera connected for live viewing on the PC via USB cable (with 2 good quality USB extension cables, does that affect anything?). I'm not experienced with a DSLR either, just started learning how to use it. I took some images of the moon yesterday evening - not full dark - and they are not half as pin-sharp as I would like. I'm probably struggling with a variety of issues so any guidance would be wonderful, thanks! I have done my best to collimate the scope, using a laser collimator. The image of the secondary mirror centre spot properly aligns on the target dial, but there is a lot of "splash" around dial - does this suggest more work is needed here? When taking images (the scope was not tracking as I didn't have long and there wasn't time to align it), I used a variety of ISOs and shutter speeds to test different settings (seeing as I have the most basic grip on my DSLR I am bumbling about a lot). However despite spending a while trying to get the focus spot on, and using different camera settings, on even the best images I am getting a lot of rainbow colours around the edges of craters, as well as fairly blurry edges. I've added a picture so you can see what I am on about. What are the key things I need to focus on (ha!) to improve things? Many thanks in advance, and sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place. IMG_0039.CR2