Tum te tum te tum (tapping fingers waiting for clear skies)

[Brighton Belle]

Whilst waiting for a clear night, thought I would align the finderscope today on my Celestron 114eq. Turned out to be impossible because you can't see the red dot in daylight. I now have a headache and a permanent squint. However, I got a really good view of the neighbours Sky dish so at least the scope works.

Back to finger tapping, tum te tum te tum.....

[stellawolf]

Yes great weather were having at the mo aint it

[Welrod50]

Does the battery need changing? Mine is admittedly dimmer in daylight but easy enough to see. I aligned mine on a pylon top about three miles away. Just thinking, if you align to something too close, it may be out a tiny bit when directed skywards, as the height and angle of the finder in relation to the tube assembly has an effect in much the same way as a telescopic sight mounted onto a rifle. It needs to be at a certain distance/range to work correctly.

Just a thought

Clear skies!!

Scott.

[JamesF]

You'd get close enough by aligning against a distant street light or something like that from a dark room, I'd have thought. Should be able to see the red dot then.

James

[Capricorn]

When your posts hit double digits you can post in The Astro Lounge instead of the Welcome section. :grin: :grin:

[saturn4me]

Have you collimated your scope yet?

If not, now is the time to do it, on one of those cloudy nights.

There are plenty of excellent instructions on the forum if you dont know how or are not sure how to do it!

[JamesM]

It will interesting to read how you get o with the red dot finder 'in the field' as some have claimed its a little bit bright. There are a number of alternative versions that you might want to consider in the longer term (whilst you're wearing out those nails ) and one such choice might be this one known as the Rigel Quikfinder, which will certainly be easier to use and to align with your scope. Because it is detachable (no need to use any mechanical fixings) you will of course be able to use it on any other scope that you might upgrade to in the future.

The main thing is for this weather to clear so that you can crack on and get some observing under your belt and thereby check out on how your scope is working.

James

[todd8137]

Hi and welcome from me

pat

[Jim-a]

Of course the other thing to do while waiting for clear skies is to obsess over the weather forecasts - here are four good astro-weather sites for spotting potential gaps in the clouds...

TWO - gives you a 14 day cloud coverage, pressure and windspeed forecast for your location

Meteoblue sky - 3 day forecast - includes a prediction for how good the seeing is going to be

7Timer - 3 day forecast with seeing and transparency (note the 7timer site wasnt responding when I made this post - so the link may not be quite right)

Of course those three dont always agree with each other!

For on-the-day cloud predicting then Sat24 gives you an animation of the last couple of hours of satellite pics - you can put your location on the map and get a really good sense of how fast the gaps in the clouds are moving and in what direction and when (if) they will be over you.

Hope those help while away the time waiting for clear skies... all of them seem to be predicting cloud-free skies this evening where I am - so fingers crossed!

[MorningMajor]

Frustrating isn't it, however you should be able to see the red dot in the daylight - make sure it's truned up as bright as possible and move your ahead around behind the finder as sometimes you're off axis and the dot is quite directional - easy to spot at night but trickier in the day.

Good luck

[JamesF]

Yes, definitely agree about the red dot in daylight. I've just been out taking images of the moon and could see the red dot quite clearly against the blue sky though I did have to turn it up to close to full brightness.

James

[MorningMajor]

To check the position of the dot, cover the front of the finder with your hand, you'll then see it, then slowly remove your hand and you should be able to make the dot out against the sky