C11/CG5 first light - at last!

[ChrisEdu]

Finally got to play last night!!!

Lugged it all out to the garden and had a look at what I could find.

I've not yet got my head round how to set it all up properly, with the alignment of the mount etc..., so I just pointed it roughly north and set to work with the finder scope.

As it was an easy target, maybe not a sensible one, though, I first opted for the moon. Bringing it into view with the finder, I then looked through the scope's EP to see..... nothing!

The finder scope was so far out of alignment that even the moon was missing from the C11's EP. I quickly set to twisting the various knobs, etc, until the finder and scope seemed to pretty much agree.

Seeing the moon come into view was great - blindingly so!

Argh!!! Even with a moon filter fitted, the moon was so bright my sight was doomed! With the 40mm EP, the moon pretty much filled the entire FOV and looked stunning.

Next I pointed the scope in the rough direction of Andromeda. Through the finder I could see a smudge and in the EP a galaxy was clearly visible, albeit not necessarily Andromeda. Regardless, I could see a clear difference between this view and what I'd previously seen in the 4SE - no real surprise there!

Vega was a briliant light in the sky when viewed and from there I set about trying to find the Ring Nebula. After a bit of searching, and trying to get use to the GE style mount, I eventually found it in the 40mm EP. It appeared so much clearer in the C11, no need for averted vision.

Finally, I had a look at Jupiter. It main bands were easy to see, as were the moons. It was till quite low in the sky, so the seeing conditions weren't great, but it was easy to see more detail viewing with the 40mm. For whatever reasons, I didn't try any of the other EPs with Jupiter. I had tried a 5mm Hyperion with the moon but found it disappointing, possibly in part due to the atmospherics.

Anyhw, by about 1am, I thought I'd have a go at trying to align the mount and scope. As I moved the entire set-up to where I'd be able to see Polaris, in came the clouds! So, I never did get to try to align things. Even so, just having a play at pot-luck pointing, I was pleased with what I could see, as were my wife and boys. Heck, my wife even said that I could build an observatory to put the scope in!!! :)

Thinking ahead, can anyone point me towards any useful information, hints, tips on properly setting-up and aligning the mount and scope? I'm guessing the instruction manual might be a good starting point but, based on other experiences with the instructions, I don't hold out too much hope.

[rawhead]

Glad you managed first light

Didn't do your back in?

Astro boy's guide to aligning the CG5 with a polar scope is here: CG-5 Easy polar alignment using the polar scope

Cheers

[ChrisEdu]

Thanks for the link - I'll take a good look at it!

As for my back, it's one of the few parts that is trouble free!

[Dusty_Scope]

Hiya!,

Good to read of your pleasure with your new scope.

I am currently going through the growing pains of learning accurate mount alignment and have found the Astronomy Shed tutorial videos on YouTube really helpful. There's five of them on this topic alone, IIRC.

HTH,

Tony

[swamp thing]

Nice one Chris.

Obsy eh? blimey we'll be needing to wear a tie next time we're down your way.

Cheers Steve

[Space Bat]

Nice report -

One trick when I used to have an eq mount was to find a permanent spot in the garden where i would be happy I got most of the viewing angles and of course could align scope.

Then marked the ground...this can be done with paint spots, chalk or if on grass wooden stakes or fixed pads.

I used to keep scope inside...but when ever it went out could plonk the scope down and pretty much be on the money alignment wise and only required minor tweaking to set up

[ncjunk]

...with pain spots??? That sounds entertaining! ;-D

Great report though, it made for a good read.

[Space Bat]

...with pain spots??? That sounds entertaining! ;-D

Great report though, it made for a good read.

Oops corrected

[ChrisEdu]

Hiya!,

Good to read of your pleasure with your new scope.

I am currently going through the growing pains of learning accurate mount alignment and have found the Astronomy Shed tutorial videos on YouTube really helpful. There's five of them on this topic alone, IIRC.

HTH,

Tony

Thanks for that - I'll have a look at hopefully get it sussed by the next time we get a clear sky - that'll give me a few months to learn!

Nice one Chris.

Obsy eh? blimey we'll be needing to wear a tie next time we're down your way.

Cheers Steve

Just a tie?! Please feel free to wear morning suit!

Nice report -

One trick when I used to have an eq mount was to find a permanent spot in the garden where i would be happy I got most of the viewing angles and of course could align scope.

Then marked the ground...this can be done with paint spots, chalk or if on grass wooden stakes or fixed pads.

I used to keep scope inside...but when ever it went out could plonk the scope down and pretty much be on the money alignment wise and only required minor tweaking to set up

Assuming it is aligned properly and placed back in the exact same spot, then I assume that it shouldn't need much / any alteration? If it does need altering, what would you change?

[Pingster]

Great stuff Chris, the moon is beautiful with a big scope. And yes blindiing atm as its full, next week it will look much better. And i have a feeling 5mm is too much power even for a 11in scope. Even in my 16in i find that my 17mm +powermate = 8.5 is getting to the edge of its powers for most objects.

I am impressed you could see the ring neb with full moon. I can't wait to observe with you this coming new moon.

[ChrisEdu]

Let's hope it's a good one, and a night where I don't have to work the next day!

I was quite surprised by how much I could see inspite of the moon doing its best to blot everything.

[Space Bat]

If you can get it bang on the mark - noting, but all depends on what you are using to mark its location and how well you can locate it when re-positioning. For the most part observing wouldn't need to do anything as close enough is good enough...but may want to make sure you are perfect for long exposure work...so tweak here and there may be necessary if dont have the means to place it perfectly...

[appalachik]

I'm with Space Bat on this issue... I've copied and pasted below my set up routine from an earlier reply I gave on this subject...

"My C6 SGT gets moved from my home to the unheated lobby of my workshop if it looks like being a good night for viewing. I do the setup at that time and mount it , roughly levelled on a home-made dolly, which also carries the power supply, cigarette lighter sockets, Astrozap heater controller and laptop etc., so I switch on the heaters now. That way, it's already cooling in a secure environment. When it's time to start using it, it gets wheeled out to the viewing position.

There are 3 carefully oriented "dolly locators" at the viewing position I use. The dolly feet can then be wound down with fine pitch thumbscrews (M8x60mm) to complete the levelling and alignment whilst lifting the wheels clear of the ground. By the time I switch the CG5GT mount on and select the home position, I'm pretty darned close to polar alignment and with a bit of fine tuning and a mount alignment routine, I'm good to go."

So the method works for me too.

Jenna

[Charon]

Nice one Chris.

[AztecastroMcJ]

Glad to hear u got some views with new scope Chris

i've just been doing 2star alignment,

i'm not adding any calibration stars or polar aligning scope either, and getting decent enough accuracy from Goto

i polar align mount tho

and chose two stars either in E or W to do alignment

if i want to view object in west after i have been viewing in east or vice versa

i redo my alignment using 2 new E/W stars

did my 1st meridian flip on Jupiter other night and it was slightly out of fov of finder after flipping but i just recentered and didn't bother realigning,

u can skip 2 star alignment aswell and just go to solar system align and choose moon or jupiter, i did this 1st time out

any problems let us know, everything working as it shud here

James