sktwatcher explorer 200p

[Vince1963]

Hi Guy's need a bit of advice with my scope, Firstly I'm a newbie and the problems I'm have is this... firstly i though i had the dec balance good but after about an hour and a half i was moving scope to a new area of sky ( not moving tripod) got scope on orion but when i was fine tuning the dec the scope slipped down rather than moved up to the object, the clutch seemed to be slipping... is the normal? the scope is new. secondly while focusing with a 10mm and 2x barlow (200 mag) the image is wobbling and very difficult to focus,.... is this normal? I have an EQ5, i thought this was a good mount. also loking at jupiter with 200x mag, I'm not seeing much detail as the image is very bright, is this also right? tried different mag and still cant get the image up for the brightness. Thanks guys ( in anticipation) Vince

[astromartian]

Hi Guy's need a bit of advice with my scope, Firstly I'm a newbie and the problems I'm have is this... firstly i though i had the dec balance good but after about an hour and a half i was moving scope to a new area of sky ( not moving tripod) got scope on orion but when i was fine tuning the dec the scope slipped down rather than moved up to the object, the clutch seemed to be slipping... is the normal? the scope is new. secondly while focusing with a 10mm and 2x barlow (200 mag) the image is wobbling and very difficult to focus,.... is this normal? I have an EQ5, i thought this was a good mount. also loking at jupiter with 200x mag, I'm not seeing much detail as the image is very bright, is this also right? tried different mag and still cant get the image up for the brightness. Thanks guys ( in anticipation) Vince

Hi mate, well I also recently bought a 200p but I think I can answer some of your questions.

1. "the scope slipped down rather than moved up to the object" - The image in the eyepiece is actually up-side-down. The eyepieces that come with the 200p lack the optics to 'right' images so that they appear the right way up, hence if you turn the adjustment screws the image appears to travel in the opposite direction to the movement of the telescope. Another problem could be that something on the mount is catching on something.

2. "difficult to focus.... I'm not seeing much detail as the image is very bright". Yeah it is. You have to be very careful not to touch the scope with your hands/eye because this causes the scope to vibrate, this is amplified when using a very large magnification. As to detail, you have to spend time looking at objects, make sure you have good night vision (adjust your eyes to darkness and only use red lights when observing), be patient. As an example I was viewing Venus last night and all i saw was a bright disc slightly bigger than a star, on closer inspection you could see it was only half of the planet since it is going thorugh a phase. I also found Mars which appeared as an orange disc, with more time spent viewing it you could make out some patches of darker colour. It's incredable that I was able to see a planet millions of miles from us.

I hope this helps and others confirm/add/correct my comments.

Clear Skies!

[pel]

Hi Vince ,

Did you balance the OTA before you started viewing?

There is information in the manual and online regarding this.

When the OTA is balanced, there is less strain on the locking mechanisms.

Perry.

[devlin]

Hi it sounds like the lack of detail could just be down to seeing not up to much. The last few weeks the sky has been clear but the atmosphere has been turbulent that means when you have focused you get a sort of heat haze effect and a lack of detail.

Also on a larger aperture scope that gathers a lot of light you would do well to get a few filters for planetary viewing made a huge difference on my DOB. Hope this helps

Your scope is well regarded so don’t give up collimation may be worth looking at as well.

[rwilkey]

A Baader Neodynium Filter will help a great deal with the brightness problems on both Moon and planets - a great asset IMO.

[astromartian]

rwilkey, any idea where i can buy a cheap filter for moon viewing? I have a problem with brightness too.