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First Light Image with my new TS Boren F2.8 Newtonian

Catanonia

By Catanonia
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Tim

Tim

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Confusing? Tell me about it!

However! The actual kit is very easy to use, and simple to understand.

You can buy it now in a neat little case with an illuminating LED and its all very neat. If you get the minimum, then the BlackCat Chesire and the Auto-collimator are the two to go for, but depending on the size of your secondary the crosshaired sight tube might be useful too for ensuring no rotation of the secondary. The secondary on my F4 is too big for it to be useful.

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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Confusing? Tell me about it!

However! The actual kit is very easy to use, and simple to understand.

You can buy it now in a neat little case with an illuminating LED and its all very neat. If you get the minimum, then the BlackCat Chesire and the Auto-collimator are the two to go for, but depending on the size of your secondary the crosshaired sight tube might be useful too for ensuring no rotation of the secondary. The secondary on my F4 is too big for it to be useful.

my secondary is 75mm

Too big ?

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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Nice Harry, I didn't use the Barlow method, but will do next time as it is suppose to be good.

Would a slightly titled secondary, IE not perfectly circular in the view tube cause the collimation issues in my single sub. Ie the comet bottom left and focus bottom right.

My concern here is that the secondary came seperate on delivery and I may have not pushed it in our out on the spider the correct distance. Rotation I can sort, but in out distance, unsure of.

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Tim

Tim

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The Blackcat chesire used with the hotspot is an absolute joy, there is no room for error allowed and alignment will be as near perfect as damnit. You get a transparent sheet with your mirror size on it which helps you ingeniously place the hotspot perfectly centred.

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blinky

blinky

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Hi

As said a little more work on the collimation and you should be somewhere near :)

There is a lot of flare from the bright star , is the sides of the secondry blackned as these fast newts pick up every bit of loose light :(

Harry

When I did the silicone mod to my Newt I then removed the mirror clips on the primary and that removed loads of the flare.

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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Yup.

Can I ask a favour please ?

I am still a bit confused as to what to get on the Cats Eye site.

Could you list with the current names what you would

a. Recommend in terms of parts or item number

b. Taking into consideration of cost, what is the bare minimum you would recommend ?

I am going to give the collimation one more shot using my methods, and the barlow method, but I feel a Cats Eye method is propably the route to go, looks impressive on the vid.

Many thanks

Cat

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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Hi

I have a cats eye and very good it can bee , but not easy to understand the stack of reflections ( IMO of course ) , hence why I stick with the easy to see laser jobbie , or perhapes my eyes are doddgy :)

Harry

I stuggle to look through eyepieces as I can't wink and every thing shifts around constantly. Tis horrid.

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Tim

Tim

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Its the bits in the vid.

If you are ever down Coventry way pop by and see the bits. They are expensive, but the quality is impeccable.

Before you even start out with the mirrors though, make double, triple sure that the focuser is mounted square and not tilted in either axis. For this you need to remove the secondary and use a Hotech. Put a long threaded bolt of the right size into the secondary holder, and make sure the beam hits it. Then measure down from the front of the tube to the laser in the focuser, then check that measurement against the laser hitting the opposite side of the tube.

This should be a once only operation, and you get the chance to check all screws for tightness etc.

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harry page

harry page

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Hi

Very excellent advice as this can cause a lot of problems

Harry

Its the bits in the vid.

If you are ever down Coventry way pop by and see the bits. They are expensive, but the quality is impeccable.

Before you even start out with the mirrors though, make double, triple sure that the focuser is mounted square and not tilted in either axis. For this you need to remove the secondary and use a Hotech. Put a long threaded bolt of the right size into the secondary holder, and make sure the beam hits it. Then measure down from the front of the tube to the laser in the focuser, then check that measurement against the laser hitting the opposite side of the tube.

This should be a once only operation, and you get the chance to check all screws for tightness etc.

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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Hi

Very excellent advice as this can cause a lot of problems

Harry

I did this, but using the paper method of measuring distances and focal point. Didn't use a rod to check as didn't have one. But all that siad, most likely I screwed it up.

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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ok re-checked focuser squareness with a bar and bang on :)

Just re-done the collimation trying to get the secondary as circlular as possible.

Also put the secondary much closer to the spider with room for secondary collimation, I am assuming the spider has been put in the perfect place by TS. Indeed the focuser is offset quite a bit using a laser.

Off to get a new battery for my laser, been using it soo much :(

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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Ok so now redone the collimation and taking my time and all pointers given here and it looks very good to the eye.

1. Check focuser is square using a rod from the secondary centre hole and laser. Bang on. Also bang on the opposite side of the tube.

2. Checked the secondary is perfectly circular and central in up down axis, of course it was shifted to the left due to offset, but not too much. Also put the secondary close to the spider with room for adjustments only as I persume the spider was placed properly bu TS when they build it.

3. Adjusted the secondary bolts to get laser to hit centre of the primary.

4. Adjusted the primary to the laser return and bang on.

5. Check through a view tube and wow perfect circles, reflection of the doughnut bang on centre and centred on itself. Nice perfect circles and just shifted left.

All locked down and now waiting for a few stars.

Also got the perfect distance for the corrector to my CCD with the OAG and filter wheel in place. Also managed to wire up the rear primary fan to my DC supply :)

So just need some stars now to put scope on mount in observatory and give it another test shot.

Next major job will be focusing the OAG QHY5. That is always a pain point and takes hours sometimes.

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