Am I going mad

[Steve6685]

Hi everyone just recently bought a celestron 70 travelscope a sort of try before you buy job as I didn't want to pay out straight away.

Anyway was looking through the scope with both eyepieces and can't help but notice I have 3 lines running through the centre every time I look at anything.

Any ideas is the scope broken is it normal ??

Any help and advice is welcomed many thanks

Steve

[brantuk]

Hi Steve and welcome to SGL

A refractor shouldn't have any lines running across the objective lens. What sort of pattern do the three lines make (eg parallel, crossing at angles, cross hairs,etc)? Is it focused when you look through? Are you looking through the finder or the main scope? Which eyepiece are you using? Is there anything visible on the objective lens that resembles the pattern (eg hairs)? A bit more detail might help us analyse the problem for you and determine if it's faulty or not.

[Qualia]

Great questions from Brantuk and hopefully by giving an answer or two, someone may be able to help.

More as anecdote, a couple of weeks back I was lost in a world of observing and sketching using a simple Ortho eyepiece when quite suddenly a creature of the night was there before my eyes. I caught sight of its huge hairy legs and jumped out of my skin. It took me a moment to realise it wasn't any blood sucking crawly but my eyelashes Aye, the adventures of stargazing

[John]

Hello and welcome to the forum

I've seen similar effects when using a 45 degree prism diagonal with a scope. A 90 degree mirror diagonal will work much better for astronomy purposes.

[pevsfreedom]

Great questions from Brantuk and hopefully by giving an answer or two, someone may be able to help.

More as anecdote, a couple of weeks back I was lost in a world of observing and sketching using a simple Ortho eyepiece when quite suddenly a creature of the night was there before my eyes. I caught sight of its huge hairy legs and jumped out of my skin. It took me a moment to realise it wasn't any blood sucking crawly but my eyelashes   Aye, the adventures of stargazing 

"Man it's so dark tonight I can't even see the stars!"

"Oh the telescopes cap is still on" 

[brantuk]

Yup - we've all been there - I've been caught out with the "eyelashes thing" and "end cap still on" too. lol. I was also puzzled one night by the bold line running across the objective, one night when observing from the front lawn. Took half an hour to realise the scope had tracked across overhead telephone cables. :grin:

[Thalestris24]

Hi

I just bought one of these too as they appear to be on offer. Exceptional value for money as astro equipment goes. Includes a backpack,  two eyepieces - and a rubbish tripod! I tried it out terrestrially with the diagonal and got very clear views. It's also very light - maybe a bit plastic but for £39 can't expect much. It's now attached to my 130pds as a 400mm guide scope Had a go with it last night and it seemed fine.

Louise