New Celestron Edge 8" - Pleasure and Pain

[StevieO]

First of all I'd like to say Hi to all at SGL. I used to post regularly but lost my imaging mojo a couple of years ago after the UK weather wore me down.

But I'm back, and to celebrate have treated myself to a new OTA, the magnificent Edge 8"! I've had some teething problems which I wanted to share to anyone getting one of these to save some time and frustration They're all minor but avoidable problems:

First, needing to swap out the Vixen dovetail for a CGE, I found that you need 3 separate allen keys, all in Imperial (Thanks, America!) - 5/64", 9/64" and 5/32", to do the job. Hands up everyone who has these sizes lying around! As it happens, I own a Harley Davidson so I have a large Imperial toolkit, otherwise it would have been a trip to B&Q. I only got to know the sizes through trial and error so you'd need to buy a full set to make sure you had the right ones (but now you know!)

Second, the domeheaded screws for fitting a finderscope and accessories are different lengths, so if you want to fit a finderscope to the 'right' side of the OTA, you have to get the screws from the holes on the 'left' - Why? Wouldn't it be simpler (and therefore cheaper) to have the same sized screws in every hole, also saving time for the poor customer who has to waste time finding out these things for themselves?

Last, and most serious, I wanted to fit the Vixen dovetail to the top of the OTA for my guidescope. There aren't any suitably placed holes for this, but there ARE some holes of identical size placed right where you'd expect them to be at the front of the OTA (see photo), with 5/64" grubscrews as above, but which don't come out and appear, on closer inspection, to have blue Locktite on them. It turns out that these hold the corrector plate, and by interfering with them I might have affected the collimation - Doh! There is no mention of these grubscrews in the literature that came with the OTA.

This is a fantastic, beautifully made scope and I'm looking forward to many years of enjoyment with it. I just wish Celestron didn't put so many minor but stupid and avoidable issues in the way. 

Sorry to restart my posts with a moan, but hopefully I'll be back with some first light images soon.

Clear skies all

StevieO

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @StevieO and welcome back. 

I know the frustration of different heads, lengths, threads, etc., of the 'allen'/'hex-head' machine screws that are used on an OTA from my C6/SCT  ...I thought it was just me!

I purchased a Thumbscrew Assortment Kit from... http://www.scopestuff.com/ss_scast.htm (see image below) a few months ago, with an order for some other astro/scope parts that I could not obtain here in GB/UK.

 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Philip R

[Rocket Stars]

Hi StevieO! 

I am a beginner, a noob, a popular expression today.

Looking around for a guidescope. The same question poped up. Not sure what screws to use for a dovetail? 

So how did it work out for you?