Moonshed

Today, for a change, I was very fortunate, clear blue sky all day and then at 6pm guess what, it was still clear! I could see stars! And Mars and the Pleiades, and, and, and....gotta get my scope out it’s going to get misty soon for sure. I managed to get about 90 minutes in before the seeing, which wasn’t actually brilliant anyway, took a turn for the worse. I spent most of the time taking AVIs of Mars of varying lengths and the rest looking though the eyepiece, best way to round off the night. Tonight I tried a different approach. I fitted the dew shield on my SCT as usual, but, following a suggestion given here to give it a go, I did not switch on my dew heater, and set the scope horizontally and left it to cool down, it doesn’t take long as it lives in a shed set up ready to go. The idea is to avoid the air currents that can possibly arise inside the tube due to the heat created by the dew heater. Seemed worth a try anyway. The image of Mars on the FireCapture screen looked pretty good and appeared steadier than it has previously, but that could well be down to the seeing. Anyway, tomorrow will be interesting when I take all that very precious and so carefully collected raw data and process it until it becomes an overstretched, over sharpened, over waveleted and over Photoshopped cringeworthy mess. If on the other hand it turns out not too bad I may post it here so you can all gasp in amazement. Sigh.

I take it that when you referred to meteors that were “pleasingly slow moving” you were speaking relatively. Of course meteors are only visible for a fraction of a second, but some are significantly slower moving than others.

Hi Jim, you have a nice location for star gazing by the sound of it. I would suggest that if possible try to find a position that enables you see the stars rise in east and set in the west, although seeing the actual horizon would be nice it really doesn’t matter. If you imagine the path the sun takes across the sky that is what I am talking about, it means that you will be able to see most things, although to see all you need uninterrupted views. One last thing, unless you are going to purchase a large, cumbersome ‘scope, or have an observatory, medium ‘scopes are fairly easy to move from one location to another, but if you intend to go into astrophotography care will be needed regarding location, and of course power sources, although power packs can get around that. Good luck!

I don’t know about using a rocket powered blower, I only use a hand held squeeze bulb. 😄

That’s the sort of thing my wife asks, I didn’t know there was a difference,

Isopropyl alcohol is a powerful substance, I used it in model making to remove glue for one thing, I would not put it anywhere near my telescope optics. I think you have already been given good advice for the correct cleaning fluid and fingers crossed it does the job. The general advice given when cleaning is to avoid using circular motion and instead start from the centre and work out in straight spoke lines. Hope it works out.

Hi Peter, thank you for that information, I was not aware of this phenomenon. As suggested I Googled it and found it to be very interesting, I will now return to my Mars raw data and try again because I put a lot of effort in trying to make the effect completely disappear.

Apart from the advice I have given above I will add some more. You now have three threads running at the same time all dealing with problems with the one scope you own. It’s not necessary to spread yourself out like that, it’s easier if you stick to one thread , it’s all this subject requires, and will most likely get resolved quicker. Also, when members have gone to the time and trouble to give you some good advice, as we have in your other two threads, as a courtesy you should reply instead of not responding and opening up more threads.

You will find that giving more detailed information will result in getting to the solution quicker and enabling members to understand the problem better.

Hi John, that’s a very similar image to the one I looked at and thought the same, it shows two screws.

My wife and I have only been to Phoenix twice, both times in March, and it was hot even then, a dry heat as you say, which is a lot more bearable than with high humidity. One of my lasting memories is going into the dessert at night and seeing more stars than I have ever seen before! I Also remember taking a torch so we could avoid tarantulas because they come out at night to hunt. Ugh!

Should a 100 metre telescope ever be built it will reveal the Apollo landers, the largest objects left behind, as only two pixels, which could be anything, so it would need be a lot bigger than that, can you imagine such a monster?

Hi Torutro, What you have described is a little confusing. You say you have collimated your Celestron, what this means is you have made adjustments to the secondary mirror, using those three screws, in order to correctly align it with the main mirror. You can check this has been done correctly by looking at an out of focus star and ensuring the dark centre spot and concentric rings are centralised when you look through the eyepiece, like target rings. Perhaps you mean something else when you say you collimated it? EDIT: sorry, my mistake, I thought your scope was a different type known as a Schmidt-Cassegrain, but on checking discover it’s a reflector, very different way of adjusting these. Nonetheless if it’s collimated it means the mirrors are correctly aligned.

Are you saying you are only tightening one of the screws or that you only have one screw? I think you mean you only have one screw. Once you have tightened it are you saying the eyepiece still moves around?

The RA ring is the one that is nearest the tripod, the Dec ring is nearest the scope. Hope that helps sort out which is which.

It seems that you have been a little unfortunate, but at least you have followed advice given in your earlier thread and ordered a Telrad, so that’s one problem soon to be rectified. Not sure why the eyepieces do not sit tight when clamped in, are you saying they are still loose after tightening the locking screws? It seems odd because they are spaced well apart and it’s hard to see how after tightening both of them that there can be any play in the eyepiece.

I see from your newer thread a few minutes ago that you have ordered a Telrad, that’s good, one problem solved! Thanks for letting us know!

That is a beautiful image, I love how natural it looks, you have managed to bring out the detail without overdoing the balance of colours that can sometimes make M31 look false. Great job.

My goodness that certainly takes you back in time, looks like it was one of those early steam powered jobs.😄

Thanks vlaiv that’s very helpful, something the non-astronomically minded person can understand, apart from moon hoax believers that is because they just don’t get anything!

Sadly it isn’t possible to resolve detail on the lunar surface as small as the Apollo debris, us astronomers appreciate that. Even Hubble above the Earth’s atmosphere can only resolve objects on the lunar surface the size of 86 metres/280 feet or more. I get asked every now again why we can’t see the Apollo landing equipment left on the Moon, usually by YouTube hoax believers (Groan). The problem seems to stem from the amazing images we get from Hubble, if we can see galaxies at the very edge of the universe billions of light years away why can’t we see objects on the Moon that’s only 240,000 miles away? I try to explain about resolving power and so on but may as well talk to a budgie.

I know this is going to sound dumb but I have to ask. On some of my Mars images I have what I thought was a blurry edge to it, but seeing the same effect on yours I’m now wondering if instead it’s the Martian atmosphere because your image is otherwise perfectly sharp.

If this is the RDF you have that came with the scope I can only suggest it looks as though it could become easily misaligned, cannot speak from experience though. My recommendation would be the Telrad, it adheres directly onto the tube and is easy to adjust and use, once aligned it stays aligned, not had to adjust mine since I bought it in 2016. Is this what you have?

I’m impressed with the amount of detail you have revealed in M42 by sticking your scope out the bedroom window. Well done. You’ll be going for the Horsehead Nebula next! 😄

For astrophotography I would keep the 130 PDS as it has the larger aperture and will therefore capture more light.