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157 ExcellentAbout Shaun_Astro
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Star Forming
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It's kind of like rare wildlife watching, if you could see the animals all the time, where would the appeal be?
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Definitely the skyliner for planets I'd say also. I would recommend the bresser 150/1200 dob, its £80 more and you get better altitude bearings and tube rings (for later changes in mounting) but the finder is pretty naff and it doesn't include the better hexafoc focuser. If "sparing no expense" is your agenda you might consider the Orion Optics VX6-L. That and the dob mounting comes to a whopping £576, which is actually reasonable considering its made in the UK.
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Interesting, I don't think I have one lying around though. A star test showed a slightly better focused airy disk, the inside focus diffraction rings are very pronounced, but is is more oval now, pinched optics? The outside focus is still blurry, I can barely see any diffraction rings, sigh. Here's an unedited cropped image of the moon, prime focus, 1300D, about 34x magnification with a 26mm diag chip, and another edited version. It's very difficult to focus with the DSLR zoomed in with the refractor wobbling about on it's crappy plastic clamshell, and the mirror movement alway
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I have a feeling the lens cell might unscrew using the two gaps in the ring around it. I did star test it just now. It's a bit out, not sure what constitutes acceptable though. The included diagonal was pretty bad. Had a good look at Mars and Uranus, some detail in the former. Minimal CA surpsingly.
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New Challenge Ideas Needed!
Shaun_Astro replied to Grant's topic in Imaging Challenge - Announcements / Winners
Crappy achromat challenge! -
There does only seem to be one screw on the inside of the lens, which isn't reachable without removing the stuck dew shield. I was thinking if it's that close to not warent sending it back a bit of a yank might straighten it out. I would like to be able to get the lenses out to ensure they are seated properly and not pinched, but I guess this isn't possible. For the price I got this for I would rather not hassle bresser too much and risk them chucking it and refunding me.
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Despite the rain I put an artificial star on the pavement about 30m away. Here are the results: Left vid inside. Out of focus middle (I couldn't get any diffraction rings to show clearly with the camera (perhaps the torch moved). With 180x I could see them just about, they looked much weaker obviously, but still circular (Doesn't look like I came out of focus enough either). Focused right vid. I think the hole in the foil perhaps was too big, despite it being literally pin head sized. What do you think? I will try on Polaris next clear night. They look pre
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Aha! No luck with the dew shield. But I may have found the issue. The eyepiece holder clamp was either knocked wonky or screwed on poorly. It was at an angle and off the threads. I've straightened it up and it seems to be reasonably in collimation now. The image shows after in took it off and screwed it back on again. I thought the dew shield didn't look wonky enough to cause that much of an issue. I assume the divergence from the centre now is due to that or poor collimation of the focuser.