Flocking..

[Dave Wall]

Thinking of flocking my skywatcher 200p is it worth doing.

[russ.will]

Yes, but you only need to flock the area of tube opposite the focuser and the base of the tube about 9" up from the primary. This is a lot cheaper and easier than trying to flock the whole tube and delivers 99% of the benefits. Depending on your local light polution, making a dew/light shroud out of easyfoam or camping mat, is another £5 well spent.

Russell

[spaceboy]

I went in to great lengths some time ago whether flocking is really worth it (mainly due to the cost of protostar flocking and having to import from the U.S) and now I am flocking mad about the stuff. Every scope I have ever owned has benefitted from it and now a suitable substitute has been found for protostar at a fraction of the cost I would recommend it to anyone. The improvement is always going to be subtle but every subtle improvement you make adds up to a greater improvement over a stock scope in the long run.

[Dave Wall]

Thanks guys I'm going to do mine you've convinced me. I'll be getting the camping mat this weekend.

[Dave Wall]

Done it today was pretty easy thanks Russ & spaceboy.

[Moonshane]

I went in to great lengths some time ago whether flocking is really worth it (mainly due to the cost of protostar flocking and having to import from the U.S) and now I am flocking mad about the stuff. Every scope I have ever owned has benefitted from it and now a suitable substitute has been found for protostar at a fraction of the cost I would recommend it to anyone. The improvement is always going to be subtle but every subtle improvement you make adds up to a greater improvement over a stock scope in the long run.

the good thing about the FLO option is that it allows some amount of repositioning. the protostar stuff is very good but you have one chance only to get it right. I also flock all my scopes. the 6" f11 was a challenge.

[Dave Wall]

the good thing about the FLO option is that it allows some amount of repositioning. the protostar stuff is very good but you have one chance only to get it right. I also flock all my scopes. the 6" f11 was a challenge.

Indeed i used the FLO material myself needed to reposition it twice.

[Andyfx]

Daft but related question here.

I'm currently refurbing and upgrading an older newtonian from Orion Optics, that has a bar holding the secondary mirror cell rather than a spider. Would it be worth flocking that bar, and would it make any difference what so ever to diffraction spikes?

[moriniboy]

Don't do the bar, the larger it is the more diffraction effect, thats why now they use 0.5mm spider vanes to reduce this.

Just make sure its painted with matt (blackboard) paint

[Alkaid]

I'm going to do my F8 reflector. Does anyone else have moments of complete stupidity like I do? Yesterday I thought to myself "I wonder what the flocking paint is like on the OO OTA". Seemed good when I looked at it, matt black all the way through the tube. So in my daft inquisitive way, I touched the matt finish (without washing my hands first). I am a normal individual and hardly sweat, but I managed to leave a nice oily finger mark on the material. This irritated me, so when I gently tried to remove it I made it ten times worse and left a shiny patch. Been cursing my idiotic behaviour for 24 hrs now, not at all pleased with myself. In future I will be touching with my eyes!

So I will flock the areas everyones mentioned, plus the shiny area I made myself. I suppose you only learm by making mistakes...

[Andyfx]

Thanks, good to know. I'll matt black it like new and look to replace at a later date.

[spaceboy]

I'm going to do my F8 reflector. Does anyone else have moments of complete stupidity like I do? Yesterday I thought to myself "I wonder what the flocking paint is like on the OO OTA". Seemed good when I looked at it, matt black all the way through the tube. So in my daft inquisitive way, I touched the matt finish (without washing my hands first). I am a normal individual and hardly sweat, but I managed to leave a nice oily finger mark on the material. This irritated me, so when I gently tried to remove it I made it ten times worse and left a shiny patch. Been cursing my idiotic behaviour for 24 hrs now, not at all pleased with myself. In future I will be touching with my eyes!

So I will flock the areas everyones mentioned, plus the shiny area I made myself. I suppose you only learm by making mistakes...

That is exactly what I did lol. In all fairness other than the expense at the time I'm glad I did put a shine on the matt finish as I would never have thought to flock my scope otherwise. As I mentioned before it's only subtle but an improvement none the less.