ED66 First Visual

[Stub Mandrel]

After our club meeting last night I got an opportunity to try out the new scope, although the  cloud came back so as much time was spent talking as looking!

It was my first attempt at using the synscan -  a triumph of a non-intuitive interface. It reset three times before I got it aligned, and I had to settle for a 1-star align as three-star failed.

I discovered that the 2"-1.25" adaptor I made is a bit too long (I copied a Skywatcher one) meaning some of my EPs wouldn't focus with a diagonal, notably my 32mm. Without it the 32mm displayed lots of nice sparkly stars in a random bit of Perseus ?

M31 looked very clear with different EPs, and I could see M32 and M110. I couldn't get M13 to show stars, and M57 was very faint, I think this was partly down to thin cloud.

Unfortunately that was about it due to the cloud, I didn't rally achieve more than prove the scope works and gives sharp-pin point stars! Obviously at 66mm it's more suited to AP and bright objects than faint DSOs.

I'm looking forward to observing the moon through it.

[Stu]

Nice one Neil, glad everything worked well, sure you can sort the adaptor easily enough. A 66mm under dark skies can show you plenty visually.

[Chris]

Well done Neil, you can be proud that you made it!

[alanjgreen]

Synscan is a nightmare to use at first (or that is what I found).

You can change some of the settings to remove various unwanted warnings. See my post of first light with the Borg 107 ...

The good news is that after the first night(mare), I have been successful at the first attempt since.

- The key is to get the centring really accurate (try defocus the star once in the center(ish) to a large blob then you can get it centred even better) AND always finish the centring with UP and RIGHT buttons on the handset (which actually looks like DOWN and RIGHT thought the eyepiece. If you miss the centre then DOWN, LEFT, UP, RIGHT again until you are happy). Make sure the two stars you pick are at least 90 degrees apart and at different altitudes too).