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First light new dob

D4N

By D4N
in Observing - Reports

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D4N

D4N

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I feel I have been concentrating on imaging too much recently so decided to rectify that with some aperture.

 

My new 300P goto dob arrived today (thanks FLO!) and amazingly there are no clouds! (maybe they forgot to put them in the box?)

Put together no problems (my kids were busy using the huge box as a police car so they left me alone) so I sat it outside to cool down and gave it a test after dinner.  It didn't seem as heavy as I was expecting but I think it will still be wise to carry the OTA separately to the base.

Collimation was easy and handset set up ok but I did have a problem with the alignment, the scope never made it to the second star.  I tried to point the thing manually at about 20° elevation it started slipping down.  Taking the dew shield off seemed to balance it so that it was ok.

I tried the alignment again and this time it worked so I guess I just need to fit a counterweight to the bottom end of the tube if I am going to use the dew shield at the same time as a 2" ep.

Now it got fun, I slewed to the moon and was nearly blinded... right.... filters... I put a UHC-S filter onto my Baader zoom EP and it was possible to view the terminator (the full disc was still uncomfortably bright but that was the only filter I had that was suitable).  The views at 188x were superb.  Had my 6yo son looking through the EP and he was well impressed, fortunately I made an observing chair as even at 27° elevation the EP was way too high for him otherwise.

I took a look around some clusters, Pleiades was framed perfectly in my 36mm Hyperion aspheric EP and even so close to the moon there was a lot to see.  Anything faint was being washed out by the moon though, M31 just had the core visible.

I think I need to get up early in the morning when the moon has gone away to give this a real test.  Maybe I can get Jupiter but it will be very low.

 

My observing chair worked really well, I fitted a 15W 12V heater into the seat so this was really nice to sit on and the 72Ah leisure battery will be able to power that for a long time.

It's a shame that the dew shield didn't work, I'm sure I will get that sorted soon enough though.

I was a little surprised at how slow the synscan handset gets in the cold, I might need to make a heater for it as it was -17° today and that is pretty normal for winter here.  I nearly froze my fingertips off dismounting the OTA from the rocker box!

I  might need some more wide angle ep's now the view in the 72° 36mm ep was addictive!

 

 

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D4N

D4N

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12 minutes ago, Jimtheslim said:

Is that observing stool home made? I am jealous

Yep I had some leftover wood from building my shed so put it to good use.  The seat section has a silicone heater mat on it with a galvanised metal plate over the top to help conduct the heat and protect the heater.  A bit of rope wrapped around to make it comfortable.

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Paul73

Paul73

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Amazing. You post about your lovely new scope and all people keep banging on about is your chair! Although the heating ellement seems like a great idea. And the sideways bench style certainly allows for a much better range than my bought effort. Sorry I'm guilty now as well.......

re. The scope. Well done on getting the shroud. I found that this really helps with the contrast by cutting down on stray ambient light hitting the mirror. You won't need the dew shield if you fit a heater to the secondary mirror or mirror stalk. Might be worth heating the eyepiece box too!

Paul

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D4N

D4N

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1 hour ago, Jimtheslim said:

Did you cut the height notches in yourself? I feel a trip to the local timber merchant and a day in the garage is on the horizon

Yeh I cut the notches with a jig saw, all the other cuts were with my mitre saw.

 

1 minute ago, Paul73 said:

Amazing. You post about your lovely new scole and all people keep banging on about is your chair! Although the heating ellement seems like a great idea. And the sideways bench style certainly allows for a much better range than my bought effort. Sorry I'm guilty now as well.......

re. The scope. Well done on getting the shroud. I found that this really helps with the contrast by cutting down on stray ambient light hitting the mirror. You won't need the dew shield if you fit a heater to the secondary mirror or mirror stalk. Might be worth heating the eyepiece box too!

Paul

Yeh apparently the chair is a hit :D  Having a warm bum makes it a lot more comfortable to observe.

I was hoping to avoid having to put a heater on the secondary, I was thinking of buying some more heating elements though for my iPad and my eyepiece box so I could do that at the same time, I have three controllers left I can use and plenty of ports on the battery box as I added three extra ones to it.

I don't think I would have seen much without the shroud last night, the moon was so bright I didn't need any torches.

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alan potts

alan potts

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Congratulations on your new scope, no clouds has to be a first!! I have a lovely clear sky again but the temperature has dropped from zero to minus 5 in an hour and the house is of course nice and warm. I spent time last night viewing in the general area of the Moon naked eye, this was mainly to see how much it really does wash out, I reckon it is knocking on the door of 2.5-3 magnitude, I was really struggling much above Mag 3. I can normally see M33 on a good night easily.

Alan

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D4N

D4N

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1 hour ago, rockystar said:

might have to get one, the kids need a new cardboard police car :)

lovely report.

Yep the kids have told their mother that I should buy more telescopes so that they can play with the boxes :D

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