astro-erago

Recommending a rigid storage container of the appropriate size would have been a far more positive contribution

Ed Ting from YouTube talks about the need to put these table top dobs onto something stable to raise them off the ground. He keeps his in plastic storage containers to move them, then flips the box/barrel over and puts the scope on the container. Two birds with one stone.

Exactly what I was thinking. A small table top dobsonian. Start with the moon. You can get a vary slightly smaller equivalent scope, second hand, from ebay, for £40. Search 'first scope', loads come up. For the same money as in the link you could also buy two decent plossl eyepieces to go with it. This scope would seem really big to a 9 year old but completely manageable for her. You would be setting her up with all the tools for her to start her journey. You can learn together, starting small, building up the size of the scopes over time, keeping the two eyepieces.

Yes it came with a 2" star diagonal and a 7mm orthoscopic eyepiece as well as the equivalent of an EQ5. I'll set it all up and try it out. Bahtinov mask arrives in two weeks... If you don't mind clarifying, how could that help in diagnosing issues? Are you referring to the potential soft lenses? If I can get a decent star pattern can I crack a beer?

Awesome news. Thank you so much for the clarification. I must have jumped to conclusions based on looking through it without an eyepiece. I need to ponder on what the optics are doing - never had a refractor before. I should have called my account "not-newton"

Thanks for the encouragement all. But, and please excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong, your camera just reduces the overall light capture. And the gunshot holes in the big mirror...other parts of the mirror supply the light. This is lenses only, and so there's going to be an area of camera sensors that receive zero photons isn't there? Just like the black dot on the back of my eye?

OMG yobbos! Well that's cheered me up a bit - funny - kind of. That's a reflector though I assume... The light can come from other parts of the mirrors? This is a refractor and there's a big black dot in the middle of the view. I think I might have a little cry.

Here's the picture - looks like a nasty scratch to me. Gutted. Doesn't look that bad by eye. What do you think?

Hello all, I've bought an old 80ED that had supposedly never been used. It was in its original box etc. There's *something* on the lens that looks white-ish. About 2mm by 3mm. Looking through from the focusing end it's jet black... Apart from that it looks ok apart from one speck of dust - also black when looking through it. What do I do? Also, even though the focuser action seems smooth there's a slight 'up/down' to the knob as it's turned. I wonder if it's been dropped and the rod has been slightly bent. So I'm also worried about 'soft' lenses if that's the right terminology. How can I check the integrity of the lenses? Thanks in advance. Context: I had an 8" dob about 5 years ago. Moon. Saturn. Jupiter. Star hopped to the great Hercules cluster. Failed to see Orion Nebula due to light pollution. I'm slowly gathering cheap gear together to hopefully dabble in a bit of astrophotography this winter.