First night viewing, or trying to.

[K3ny0n]

Warning - MASSIVE new guy here.

Hola, I got my scope on Wednesday and was eagerly waiting to get out the garden and see if all of the reading and research went to plan.

I bought a SW Explorer 200p on a EQ5 GOTO.

Pointed the north leg of the tripod North, easy.

Levelled the mount.

Waited until night was upon me and started the step I was dreading - polar alignment. Anyway not to go in to detail I pretty much aligned it up nicely.

Mounted the scope.

Balanced the scope, straight forward.

Next it was star alignment. Tried a 2 star.

I first setup on Vega and just a tad little adjustment on the keypad then it was centred bang on in the eye piece. Vega was filling up about 50% of the eye piece.

Next star was Deneb. Again I could visually see it in the eye piece but still needed a little adjustment.

Alignment complete it said .

I tried to look at a few Messier's but to no avail as I expected. Absolutely not a spec. Maybe because of the LP.

I then started to doubt the way I set up the scope, so I went back to do another alignment.

The second time around I noticed that there was a black spot in the centre of the star Vega. Kind of looking like a crosshair with a circle centre. Is this supposed to be there?

I don't know if I'm doing anything wrong or if it was just down to conditions.

I just don't know what I should of expected.

Any feedback would be great.

Thanks Rob

[WaveSoarer]

Did you try re-focusing when you went back to Vega? You'll see this effect when you're not focused. What you're seeing is the secondary and the cross-hairs.

[K3ny0n]

When I went back to Vega and I tried to focus by unscrewing and screwing all the way but the crosshairs never left the viewing area at any point.

Rob

[faulksy]

have you got an extra adaptor or extension tube in the focuser ? this might be stopping you achiving focus

[K3ny0n]

I've made the ultimate mistake.

I had both adapters fitted to the scope.

Would having both adapters restrict me from achieving focus?

Apart from that big blooper, I'm very pleased with what I've achieved on my first night out, setting up was fine, just the focuser.

Thanks a lot Faulksy, I would of been there forever!

Rob

[sunshine185]

You won't get focus with both adapters fitted, Vega would not fill 50% of the ep.

[John]

I've made the ultimate mistake.

I had both adapters fitted to the scope.

Would having both adapters restrict me from achieving focus?.....

A very common mistake with these scopes so don't worry about it - the instructions just don't make it clear that you use the adapters separately. Skywatchers are the only scopes that work like that by the way - I've never understood why.

All stars should focus to a pinpoint. If you are seeing any sort of disk and / or the shadow of the secondary mirror then you are out of focus.

I think the Hubble Space Telescope can just about image the largest stars as disks - our little terrestrial bound scopes just can't do that !

[K3ny0n]

Yeh the instructions are terrible!

I was so puzzled last night .. Never mind though steep learning curve

Thanks

Rob

[astronymonkey]

On the skywatcher focusser there is a tension adjuster screw between the two focusser wheels (a little silver bolt which sticks out and is knurled so you can grip it). If this is too tight then the focussing tube wont go in or out but the wheels will still turn, so you may need to slacken this off a bit to allow the tube to move in and out properly. If Vega is the size you suggest with the spider and secondary in the middle then its out of focus.

As you have said, make sure you have the correct adapter in the focusser to take the 1.25 inch eyepieces.

Cheers,

Astronymonkey.