nimrod 1

I just bought a used Zhumell 8” Dobsonian. The ad said “new condition” (it wasn’t), if fact when I saw the way the guy transported it to the meeting place, I almost said forget it, but the mirrors were clean and bright, so I made the purchase. (Good thing I like to tinker with things.) Anyway, last night I was looking at the moon and Saturn through it, and the detail through that thing compared to my 4se celestron is incredible. The moon was beautiful. I saw details that I could not make out with the 4”. Saturn wasn’t too different then the 4” except that I think that I could just make out the separation in the ring and I could just make out the horizontal lines on Saturn itself. Still really cool though. I have also noticed that when observing the moon, it takes much longer for the moon to move across my field of view, then with my 4”. I have just ordered a Laser collimator, a Telrad Sight Finder, secondary mirror collimation knobs, and a 2X Barlow lens, the Barlow lens is for the 4” celestron. I also purchased a Planisphere last week. can’t wait to get out and do some serious observation with this thing.

Well tonight is a big night for me, I have observed The Moon, Jupiter w/4 moons, and Saturn. I have seen Jupiter before but never Saturn. I didn’t even know it was Saturn, I just aimed my telescope at a star that I happened to see near the moon, and when I looked into the scope, I could see the rings! Incredible!!

Hello all, been a while, I am still very new to astronomy even though I had a telescope for a few years. I bought a celestron NexStar 4se some time ago. I bought it used on eBay, and the hand control really never worked correctly if at all. There were times when I would push a button, and nothing would happen, to the point of turning off the scope and turning it back on to make it start working again. I couldn’t scroll through menus for planet, stars or anything. I struggled through it for a while, but then frustration got the best of me, and I put the scope away, and lost interest. Well, a renewed spark of interest got me to break out the scope, only to find that I misplaced the power cord. I ended up buying a power tank, and last night was my first night back observing. Well of course the remote was acting up again, so I settled on watching the moon,which I enjoyed. Well, I started thinking of buying a new remote (handset) but then I thought I might try taking the remote apart, and seeing if I could fix it. Well, this morning I went in the garage, took the remote apart, cleaned all the contacts on the circuit board, and the buttons. I used denatured alcohol with a cotton swab. I put it back together and boy what a difference, the buttons respond immediately,I can scroll through all the menus,and the telescope moves on the mount without any hitching or jerky movements like it used to. I can’t wait for tonight, I hope it’s clear sky’s! As a side note, I have my eye on a Celestron 8se scope. Does anyone have any opinions on that scope? Thanks, sorry for the long winded post.