Barry-W-Fenner

I will have to check this out, I didn't realize that you can make these adjustments. Thank you Baz

Impressive, You achieved high mag and retained the image detail! Baz

Please dont talk to me about collimation Alan, I cant take anymore 🙂🙂🙂 Seriously though that's impressive, I imagine your collimation needs to be on point to achieve 400! Variable-polariser, What is this sorcery you speak of! Is it a lens that will stack in an eye piece to improve visual detail? Baz

Hi Dumbo, Glad you managed some time at the eye piece. I to have a 200p and am very happy with it. It provides stunning views of the moon and I have enjoyed viewing Jupiter,Saturn and Venus with it so far. Not to mention a number of deep sky objects. It really is a lot of scope for the money. In regard to the Eye pieces. I have purchased almost all of the BST Explorer range and find them an excellent upgrade from the standard eye pieces. targets are sharper and the eye pieces are much more comfortable to use. I believe these would also work well in your 100p also. At around £40 each you really cant go wrong with them. I am sure more experienced members can give you better insight on these eye pieces as they are very popular around here. Regards Barry

Very true, Tracking objects at high mag can be quite changeling, I am quite fortunate in the sense that I seem to be pretty good at following an object at high mag. I can stay on shooting stars and quick moving objects also at medium power. I am not much good at collimating though as you can all tell by this thread 🙂🙂 Baz

That is a very interesting read. So with a 70mm x 300mm focal you are hoping to achieve 200x mag - I have tried to view Jupiter through my 200p with my 5.5mm BST so 220ish mag and it is very blurry Is there a reason for this? It is considerably clearer with my 8mm BST Thank you

Thank you Alan! I appreciate the advise and will look at one of the above to utilise with his existing eye pieces. Regards

Great advice, Quality over quantity 🙂

Any recommendations for a cheapish 3 or 5mm eye piece for this little dob. Thank you

Thanks Alan, I have most of the BST eye piece range. I can try the following combinations. 5.5mm plus x2 barlow 8mm plus x2 barlow The 5.5mm with barlow should achieve around 110 mag. Hopefully I will be able to view the moon tonight and see how the scope performs. It looks like I will need to pick my Nephew up a 3mm or 5mm eye piece to enjoy the views. The statement about Newtons dob being smaller than the 76 really puts things into perspective. You sometimes forget what he (and others) achieved at the time with there equipment. On the plus side though they must have had the great advantage of far less light polluted sky's! I managed to aquire the Isaac Newton collectable 50p coin along with the Stephen Hawking black hole 50p here. They are something to keep away from the kids, I dont want them spent on sweets / candy. Thank you Barry

That is a funky colour collection right there Alan 🙂 Personally I like the 1st one, Cant beat the black and white combo in my opinion 🙂 That is also a really smart looking Maksutov Baz

Hi Olly, That is sound advice thank you I will take it on board. I was considering a Moonlite for very fine adjustment and you can lock the focuser in place while changing eye piece. This is very handy as I seem to move my standard one out of line very easily. The slightest pressure on the focus tube and it lowers, Very frustrating. I dont do imaging so would only use it for visual. Maybe I could find another focuser which would address my problems cheaper and use the balance to fund more refined eye pieces 🙂 Regards Barry

I have seen a few Dobs with water butt bases. They look really good and the size looks perfect to fit under the dob base. I am a "huge" 5ft 11 in height 🙂with a base this tall would the focuser be raised to high for my eyeline? Regards Baz

Hi all, I managed to get the scope collimated to a reasonable fashion last night, the secondary mirror needed quite a bit of adjustment to line my laser centrally on the primary. from there I went through the usual motions and lined up the primary and checked the red spot in the bullseye area of the laser. I took the scope outside and managed to locate the brightest star possible between all the cloud. The star was clear and crisp, The only thing that seemed to be happening was it had a slight point coming off the top of it. I assume this will be the defraction from the single vein? I unfocused the star and it produced a near perfect circle. It wasnt quite spherical all the way, One side still needs a little work, However I am pleased I managed to actually view through the scope successfully. I was really hoping to see the moon and to get an idea of how good the viewing is now but had no chance with all the cloud, Maybe tonight. From the above I pics provided I can see that my secondary mirror still needs a small amount of adjustment to make it completely spherical in the focuser. I might have a look at this tonight. Or as it is Friday I might take the night off and sink a cold one! With a dob of this size, Realistically what should I be able to see through the stock 10 & 25mm eye pieces? My only reference I have is my 200p which is not an ideal comparison. Would I be right in saying that objects in this scope should be as sharp as in the 200p but less detailed? Thank you to everyone who has contributed above, With the various guides above I now have a much better understanding of collimation and it has been a great learning experience. Regards Barry

Welcome to the forum J

Hi Louis D Thank you for the advice. I will use this also to assist me as I do use a laser. I have various solutions now and am confident I will get the scope collimated, I will be happy with just getting it back inline tonight with the aim of finer tuning later. Regards Barry

I will get there eventually thanks to your and happy kats advice Its all part of the learning. Cheers Peter Baz

I came here to say how fond I was of my Nebula days. They seem so long ago already 🙂🙂

Welcome aboard. There is a fair few knowledgeable folk around here that will help with your set up. Regards Barry

Method to our madness 🙂

🙂 I am predominantly using it as a light shield with the added bonus of dew prevention. I have only used it for a short period last night but it seemed to shield the unwanted light from both of my neighbors security lights constantly going on and off! Regards Barry

Truth be told I think it is all out of line. Hence why I am struggling. Astrobaby's guide which Happy kat kindly provided should be a huge help. I will slowly go though the collimation process step by step and identify the problems! Regards Barry

Thank you Happy kat. I will have a read and get to work. 🙂

🙂 Well you know what they say. If you are going to do a job do it properly. Might aswell make sure it is really out of line 🙂 I assumed it was going to be a mile off as when it was delivered the secondary mirror was loose and swinging around in the tube. I have tightened it back up and was trying to align with my laser but the beam is bouncing around in the tube all over the place! Regarding the focuser, it was not in that position when i took the pic of Sirius defocused. I just wound it in to show the lowest position of the focus tube in the picture. Apologies I should have mentioned this. So to Summaries. I need to attached a vertical and horizontal string centrally across the opening of the tube. Then tweak the primary so the reflection is inline or disappears behind the strings. Then look down the empty focus tube and adjust so it only has the primary mirror reflecting back. Would this adjustment need to be made with just the collimation screws or will it be likely that I need to lower or raise the secondary mirror also? After these stages are complete I can look to tweak with the laser. Hopefully I am understanding the above correctly. Thank you very much for the assistance Peter, Greatly appreciated. I new have a plan in my head of how to get this little scope back into line. I was totally stumped last night. Kind Regards Barry

Glad you had a great session John, Always nice when everything works in your favor and you actually get some quality seeing at the eye piece. Out of interest how long has it been since you last got to observe? In December I had a fairly good session on 8th but then didn't manage to get out until after xmas again with bad weather and commitments. That seemed like forever. Regards Baz