Lordspace

I was thinking of putting some tape around the barrel of the Lazer so it fits in snug without the need to use the thumb screws. I will give it a try and see what happens. When the Lazer is fully aligned I look down the focuser and can see that the mirrors aren't actually centered.

No good, no matter how much I try and get it spot on the stars still look oblong... Maybe this is the best I can expect from my scope 😕

I'm going out later so hopefully I will find out if the collimation is better this time around.

Its driving me mad, I've tried to collimate using the thumb screws and without but if I move the collimator while it's in the focuser the Lazer moves around the center of the mirror. Maybe my scope is just too budget to even bother trying to get it better. My stars all look like smudges rather than sharp.

Sorry for a asking so many questions. I know how to collimate my reflector scope but am I just going to have to make do with an ok'ish collimation rather than very good collimation as the laser shifts when using the thumb screws to hold it in the focusing tube. The Lazer collimator is aligned as I check this when it arrived in the post. How can I know that the mirrors are actually aligned properly??

Years ago before i sold everything I kept everything in my she'd, never had any issues with the scopes. No spiders or anything tried to move in. The scopes were always stored front end down to stop dust falling on the mirrors.

Ive just noticed if I put the Lazer in the 1.25" slot and tighten the locking nuts then the Lazer shifts to one side so that could be giving me false reading when collimating.

I did crop the image but I don't have a raw sub on my phone. I had a scan over one of the subs on my camera and it looks like 99% of the stars have a trail so would that more likely be collimation than coma??

It has been fully committed before I went out, everything looked spot on with the laser. Also it a skywatcher 114p but the mirror is about 2 inches further up the tube then normal.

I'm using the skywatcher 114p but the mirror has been moved up the type to get focus with the dlsr. Also the image was cropped when editing

Hi, so I managed to get some subs and what not of of the Orion nebula a few days ago and notice that the stars Inthe outer edges and towards the centre were trailing. When I set up my mount which is a skywatcher alt az synscan, (not ideal but it's all I have) I used all 4 alignment arrows when fine tuning the stars in the eye piece, I've seen and read that it's best to only use the up and right arrows when doing the final adjustments?? Does anyone know if this is true or is this more a case of field rotation. The neb was south in the sky not sure on the exact hight but it wasn't very high. I have attached the very poorly edited image. Thanks.

I've been doing some reading on very old posts (all posts on this scope seem to be old) About getting better alignment on my skywatcher synscan alt az mount. And a few people say it should have a level tripod (which I always do) And also point the mount/scope north then power on and go through the setup and alignment, Will having the scope facing north make a difference?? Cheers

True, I did dabble in imaging about 4 years ago but I moved into a terrace house with no garden and light pollution galore but have since moved to somewhere pretty dark so have started all over again. Hopefully I don't get impatient and want to try and buy more stuff before I've used all I've got now to its max.

I don't have a lens for the camera at the moment so prime focus is all I can do at the moment. I have thought about moving the mirror up but that would probably be beyond my capabilities at the moment. Would a more expensive Barlow work better if it had a better lens.

Hi people, So the reason for my question is : i have a skywatcher scope that doesn't have enough inward travel to achieve focus with my DSLR so I am using a cheap 2x Barlow lens. will this very cheap Barlow lens degrade overall image quality?? i think I know the answer to this but would like others opinions on it. and if anyone has any experience with better (not super expensive) Barlow lenses I would appreciate the input. cheers.

I have an old pentalfex 130 1000m short tube scope that is not being used as I prefer my smaller skywatcher. But just under the secondary mirror there is a thick glass lens which has some chips on the sides. Am I to assume that is an added Barlow lens to make it 1000mm? Can I remove the damaged lens and just use a Barlow lens or will the cracks not make much difference?? I can get photos of the lens and cracks if needed.

cheers, I may just update the mount as I may as well.

Does anyone know what this update actually does? I know it's for the mount but there seems to be no documentation on the website to day what it actually does. I updated my hand controller fine and that stated what new features it had. (This is the motor controller firmware update (version 2.09) for AZ GOTO mount)

Sorry about that, I forgot to put it was a skywatcher mount. I was more curious if anything as I've only ever used EQ mounts before but due to moving I had to sell all my gear due to heavy light pollution and now I'm starting again at the beginning. Hopefully we will actually get a clear full night so I can test the capabilities of the mount, scope and camera.

Hi, sorry for all the questions but all this go-to mount stuff is new to me as I'm more used to non tracking EQ mounts. Anyway what does it mean when my controller says alignment: NP error alignment: cone error Is it possible to make a wedge for this mount and align so it works like an EQ mount?? I'm sure the answer if no but though I would ask. Cheers...

After messing around pressing ctrl and 1 or ages I then realised I had to hold Ctrl then just tap 1 rather than hold it down. I have some old 3s lipos from my flying wing that are 4000mha if i added a 12v reg and attached a xt60 to a positive pin lead do you think that would have enough juice to power the mount better than AA batteries.

Will powering via AA batteries stop stallerium from moving the mount as I've tried many times, by clicking on an object in stellarium and then using ctrl #1 but nothing happens 😕 ive seen people align the mount/scope in the daytime without actually seeing the stars so I'm sure my alignment isn't the issue but I could be wrong.

The problem is did out how to set the scope as number as there is no info I can find on the issue. For some reason if I try and slew using ctrl and any number nothing seems to work. Occasionally it will move for a split second but nothing more will happen. Also if I bring up the menu and press slew nothing happens. On occasion my hand controller will flash from one menu to the other and will be stuck like that until I unplug it from the serial port Inthe pc. Every video I've seen on stellarium controling mounts has been set up super easy but none of the videos ever go into much detail Inthe full behind the scenes setup methods.

Today I was contemplating getting a laptop to control my synscan Goto mount so I tested everything out on my pc first. Everything went fine and stellarium can indeed connect to my mount and it slews and what not (intermittently) I went into the setting of stellarium and it says to control the mount I would need to press the alt key and the the number for that telescope. Is the number for my telescope referring to which com port it's on or another number?? (As I tried this and it didn't go to the target selected) Also it was obviously roughly aligned due to it being daytime. Also will powering via 8 AA batteries cause issues when using stellarium as the control?? I was thinking of getting one of the skywatcher power banks to power it so if anyone has any info on any of my questions I would be greatly appreciative. Thank you...

I downloaded the 3.39.10 firmware, all I can think is i plugged the power lead into the controller and not the mount. That would explain the warning about not motors being detected.