Beginner Refractor Help

[DamienBoath]

Hey all,

After hitting the internet and Youtube, I stumbled on this forum and thought "I'd say they'd be able to help!"

My father gave my son a telescope for Christmas. It is essentially this (not exact brand but near identical): https://skywatcheraustralia.com.au/product/60700-az2-refractor/

He did mention he obtained it second hand, but was still in original box etc. My son has been excited to use it, but like everything, there's a learning curve and expecting a 10 yr old to calibrate it for 15 minutes wears out quickly 😂  Ive never had a telescope before, so it's been a lot of fun learning and dipping into some photography (using a 3D printed adaptor for a phone *ducks* ) with some okay results. I've noticed a few "issues" with the scope and I'm wondering if people could weigh in. Based on responses, I have no qualms in purchasing upgraded parts for this scope as I'm hesitant to sink coin into a different beast and potentially annoy my old man as he's already worried he's purchased a lemon after I mentioned the learning curve we've had.

1. The finder scope is near impossible to align. I've followed guides on picking an object about 500m away during the day, aligning it via the main eyepiece and then adjusting the thumbscrews on the finder to centre it in the crosshairs. It just does not do it. I have learnt to work out "where" it's aligned which is far right of centre. So if I put the moon to the far right in the finder, it should be in the eyepiece. Not ideal.
2. Slop in the focusing system. With an eyepiece in (say 20mm) I can find an object (moon is easy in this case). I can focus in, but if I let go of the wheels, the tube assembly "drops" by a few mm which is often enough to have the moon completely disappear from the eyepiece. The system seems to be geared/teeth on the underside and I can easily move this up and down. No way to lock in place. It means I have to focus the object and then move the scope up (object out of view) and let it "drop." If that makes sense. Becomes frustrating as it leads on to the other issue I have in point 3.
3. Drift. By slightly bumping the view finder/ focus system until I let go and it settles in the middle of the view, you can finally see what you want... but it slowly drifts. The whole scope (even with the wing nuts on the mounts tight). So if I have it set and call my son over to look, even in the 20 -30 seconds it takes him to meander over, it can have tilted slightly enough to have the moon disappear. Which results in adjusting the scope physically and then the whirlwind of the slop in the focus system comes in. I've learnt to hold it while the lad looks and then he too makes adjustments. If we put the 3D printed adaptor on the eyepiece with the phone, that slight bump can throw it out. Let alone the additional weight of a piece of plastic and phone. The drift is really noticeable (if you just stand and watch the moon), almost as if the scope is weighted incorrectly, or the locking of the nuts has too much tolerance.
4. Eyepiece choices. As we experiment, we've found the 20mm eye piece and the 12.5mm eyepiece really good for looking at details on the moon. If we put the 4mm in, we can't see anything. no matter how much we adjust focus etc. It just appears grey/dark. If we put the 1.5 x Barlow lens in, with a 20mm eyepiece, we cant focus in on anything. The 3x lens seems to exceed the power of the scope. I have purchased some filters from ebay so we can have some fun with that. Will have to research those more. Looking at maybe buying better eyepieces with wider glass in them.
5. Things to observe other than the moon. We are in summer/daylight savings in Adelaide, South Australia. All the youtube and internet seems to focus on the northern hemisphere. The moon has only risen up near with venus around 10pm for a brief moment in the last few days. For January its below the horizon. We have crystal clear skies with minimal light pollution (we are an hour from the CBD and rural properties are a 5 minute drive away). Jupiter/saturn etc are below the horizon even at midnight.  What else can we observe? Is this scope only good for the moon? It'd be great to get into astrophotography, but I feel that may be a rabbit hole at this stage!

Thanks for enduring the long post. Any tips and links would be greatly appreciated. I uploaded a photo we took using a Samsung S8 on the pro setting and me literally holding the scope and phone. 🤨

Damien.

[Davey-T]

Hi Damien and welcome to SGL, the right place to come for advice although some of it might be contradictory.

That is a pretty reasonable scope to learn stuff, mainly what it's possible to see and by no means a lemon.

It's what's called a long focal length which makes lens cheaper to manufacture and not lose quality, it is also better suited to Solar system objects but needs great care and adult supervision if using the solar filter.

The focuser can probably be adjusted to minimise the slop and there are Y'Tube videos on how to do this ( there was one on the Astronomy Shed site ) 

I wouldn't attempt to use the 3mm eyepiece until you've had a bit of practice, the erect image diagonal is handy for learning as it can be very confusing when you move one way and the view goes the other.

Obviously keeping anything in view requires a bit of practice unless you spend loads of money on a motorised mount, this is exacerbated by the long focal length but if the lad is interested enough he will manage to master it and it will make any upgrade a lot easier to master, it's how most of us started out here and with a lot. lot worse scopes than yours.

Download Stellarium which will show you which targets are available and you can enter your scope / eyepiece combination to see the expected field of view.

http://stellarium.org/

ATB Dave  

 

[Carbon Brush]

Hi Damien.

Welcome to SGL. The worlds best astronomy forum.

The scope is not one of the best. But usually this sort of scope can benefit from a few 'tweaks' that don't involve reaching far into your wallet.

Looking at your list....

1/ Finderscope alignment. Maybe slacken the screws in the tube and move them a little to help you align the finder.

2/ Focusser. Take it to bits and have a look. You might find a sliver of plastic (cut from a milk carton) can be used to tighten things.

3/ Drift. You mean the scope slips, rather than the object moving across the sky.
First look at the scope balance. With everything loose, it should ideally be balanced. In practice it will be a bit off.
But there should be enough stiffness in fixings to allow for this. Have you looked at which bit is sliding?

4/ Eyepieces. Yes regard a 4mm eyepiece as something to fill the box, rather than something to use.
A 60mm dia lens will, in round figures, allow up to 120x magnification. This assumes a lot of other things are right.
The magnification formula is lens focal length (700mm) divided by eyepiece focal length (20 or 12.5 or 4mm).
This means you can obtain 35x, 56x or 175x magnification with your eyepieces.
175x (the 4mm eyepiece) is beyond the limit for a 60mm scope in this optical quality price bracket.

A useful small spend might a 6mm or 8mm eyepiece to get you more magnification that is within the scope limits.
But high magnification means having a steady mount!

5/ Other viewing targets. I am no expert on the southern sky. Never having been south of the equator. Others may wish to contribute.
However, this scope will, without problem show you Jupiter with some cloud bands and the 4 Galilean moons. Saturn's rings will be viewable.
The phases of Venus will be seen, but no surface detail. Mars will be discernible as a red dot.
If you download the free software Stellarium, it will tell you what is 'on show' for your location at any time of year.

Keep asking the questions and enjoy the viewing.

David.

[SamAndrew]

Regarding points 1 and 2, I have this scope sitting in my loft, I can confirm this is firmly at the garbage end of the spectrum unfortunately. Biggest let down is the focuser as it's all plastic. I get no joy from using the scope. 

The Star travel 80 and Evostar 90 are far better and would be well worth the upgrade if you're interested enough to post on this forum

[Louis D]

Since these scopes cost $50 new here in the States, and maybe $20 used, it's unreasonable to expect mechanical perfection from this class of scope.  Thankfully, the main achromatic doublet is usually pretty good, so good images are possible if you can fix up the mechanical deficiencies.

For the finder, see if you can loosen the screws attaching the stalk to the tube and make it align with the added degree of freedom.  Retighten the screws and perform final alignment with the finder's alignment screws.

For the focuser, you'll have to shim it with thin plastic or teflon strips on the side opposite the rack to take out the play as has been suggested by @Carbon Brush.

There's not a lot to be done for those alt-az mounts to tighten them up to take out play in them.  If you have a photographic tripod with a fluid video head for videography, they work way better.  It would then just be a matter of mating the scope to the tripod head via a mounting block of some sort.

As for targets, try panning along the Milky Way to see what randomly pops up in the field of view.  Starting with a pair of binoculars to find denser star fields can help with this.

If your son really likes astronomy, he'll be the one taking the lead on modifying the scope.  Hopefully, this scope doesn't turn him off to the joys of stargazing.  Find a local astronomy club and attend one of their public star parties to see what is possible with properly designed equipment.  Like any hobby, you can drop thousands of dollars into it when you get serious with it.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Louis D

[Timebandit]

 

 

The scope is at the cheaper end of the market and not the best built. I would not spend vast amounts of time ,or money in trying to fix or upgrade items on this scope.

If your son is genuinely interested in astronomy and does want a first "proper scope" I would keep a look out for a good used SW 200 Dob. This makes a great "proper"  first scope and will be ideal for years of enjoyment of the night sky.

 

 

 

[DamienBoath]

Thanks for all the responses! I do recognise it being a cheap/starter telescope which in some ways is good because I can be more tolerant of the short comings of it. It would be worse if the scope was $400, or $1000 and I didn't have a grasp on the basics of telescopes!

I'll go through some of the suggestions/tips across the weekend. Currently bucketing with rain today and tomorrow in a summer storm, so any chance of being outside is.... none.

Damien

[DamienBoath]

So further update:

Lad and I made some good progress with the scope. We used blue painters tape on the focuser barrel (only needed 2 strips) and the slop is gone and still smooth to operate. We then dismantled the mount for the scope barrel and added a star washer between barrel and mount, so when the wing nut is tightened, it has more ability to lock in. I noticed the thread was just a bit long and bottoming out, so it would never tighten fully. A washer each side fixed that.

I also noticed a tightening screw was missing where the silver bar sits in (altitude control). The manual says to remove one of the tightening screws from the mounts and use this for tightening the bar 🙄 Lets not do that.... so I'll replace it with another tightening screw from the junk box.

Managed to get the finderscope aligned finally by completely taking it off, lining an object up (lamp post across the valley) in the main eyepiece and then using the finderscope to centre it in the crosshairs. Tightened all screws and tweaked it. Overall it's rigid now which is good. You can slightly back off a tightening screw, smoothly move it to your object and lock it.... and it stays.

Also received some filters off ebay. We tried the sun one (with caution) and it worked quite well. Will try the others when the moon is out as it came with red, yellow, blue, pink and green filters in the pack. Only issue is, they have a thread on them and the crap eyepiece with the telescope does not. Can anyone suggest a brand/eyepiece (20mm and 12.5mm) that will fit that won't break the bank? Preferably ebay as Amazon australia sucks.

Thanks

Damien

[johninderby]

Good to hear you have made the scope usable. 👍🏻

Re: sun filter. I hope you don’t mean the type that screws into the eyepiece. If so destroy it immediately as they are incredibly dangerous and must not ever, ever be used. They can shatter without warning possibly resulting in loss of sight in your eye.Sellers on eBay selling these should be reported to eBay so they can remove them from sale.

Edited February 2, 2020 by johninderby

[elliot]

This ^^ more than anything! I did a sharp intake of breath when solar filter was mentioned. 

[John]

I'm glad that the scope is working for you but I do emphasise what has been said above re: sun filters that screw onto the eyepiece. The only safe sun filter is one that covers the whole of the front end of the scope. The screw in ones are very unsafe and should be destroyed. Unfortunately a few turn up on e.bay from time to time

Otherwise, I hope you get a lot of enjoyment from the scope

[happy-kat]

As above, plus you would also need to protect the finder scope as using that too could damage eyes. 

Good to read you've made alterations to improve your kit, that's great.

[happy-kat]

I have been searching but have failed to find the post, but the member made a home made tripod head to replace the yoke style with a head made from plumbing pipe that worked as an eq simply.

Yey found it

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/226695-cheap-altaz-mount/

And another

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/582383-show-us-your-pipe-mount/

Edited February 4, 2020 by happy-kat