First Night Out with New 8“ Dob - Struggling

[Rich_B]

Hi

First night of clear skies since purchasing my new scope. Very clear view of the moon with the naked eye but with the scope I'm getting a blurry fuzzy mess. 

I have located the moon with the Telrad and through the BST 25mm EP I see the colour of the lunar surface so I assume it's aligned correctly. But I have no image definition whatsoever. 

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks

[John]

Do you see the shadow of the secondary mirror and it's supports against the moons glow in the 25mm eyepiece ?

[rockystar]

Hi Rich, welcome to SGL and congrats on the purchase, it's a fine scope.

My immediate thought is that you are not bringing the eyepiece into focus - do you have any extension tubes in the focuser?  Skywatcher telescopes often come with a 2" extension tube and an 2"->1.25" extension adaptor; a common mistake is to have both tubes stacked up (it's what I did first night out). If this is the case, then remove the 2" extension and try again.

 

[pipnina]

2 minutes ago, rockystar said:

Skywatcher telescopes often come with a 2" extension tube and an 2"->1.25" extension adaptor; a common mistake is to have both tubes stacked up (it's what I did first night out). If this is the case, then remove the 2" extension and try again.

 

Yes, make sure only the 1.25" extension is in the focusing tube. And only the 2" extension when a 2" eyepiece is in use.

I made the mistake of having both in when I first got my 10" dob. We all make 'em.

Happy stargazing and clear skies!

    ~pip 

[Chris]

Hi Rich, don't panic  I've seen this question asked before and it turned out to be a mix up with the eyepiece extension tubes as suggested above. 

You'll love the views once focused

[John]

18 minutes ago, John said:

Do you see the shadow of the secondary mirror and it's supports against the moons glow in the 25mm eyepiece ?

I asked this question because, as the other posters have said, if you use the 2" and 1.25" adapters in the scope together, you won't be able to get a 1.25" eyepiece to focus and you are likely to be able to see the dark "cross" of the secondary supports and the shadow of the secondary mirror against the unfocussed image of the moon, star or planet.

[Rich_B]

Hi

Thank you all for the replies. I solved it in the end. It was simply a case of the Telrad not being fully aligned with the scope. I tweaked the direction of the scope whilst looking through the EP and managed to find the moon. I then adjusted the Telrad to match and all was well. The fuzzyness I was seeing initially was just light from the moon, not the moon itself. I have a few questions regarding my first night's observations but I'll start a new thread for those. 

 

Thanks again.