My image is always shaking

[Denjans]

I have a celestron 130 EQ but it’s really hard to focus. When I turn the knob my view is shaking. So it’s trying to focus, wait for the telescope to rest and focus again. Is it normal with my setup or is there some kind of trick/tip to help me?

with kind regards,

Nick Jansen

[BrianHes]

Hi Nick. I have a similar set up. Astromaster 130. I get the same problem. I have improved it a bit by lowering the height of the tripod. It has made it more stable. Unfortunately, I can’t go lower because of fences and trees around me. Patience in focusing helps. Move it a bit, let it settle and then go again it helps, but not ideal. 
hope you find a solution

[ollypenrice]

This is a problem with lightweight EQ mounts and partly explains why so many visual observers prefer the Dobsonian mount. It should be possible to fit a motorized focuser controlled by a small handset but this might be out of proprtion to the setup cost-wise.

Olly

[AstroNebulee]

I used to have an astromaster 130eq, the mount isn't the best for steady imaging, you could try adding a weight hanging from the centre of the tripod to help with stability and a marmite or peanut butter lid will make a good fine focuser to cut down some vibration when focusing, I used a marmite lid with a bolt and just bolted it on the focus wheel, I recently upgraded to a skywatcher 150p and skymax 127 with a eq3-2 mount and much steadier 

Edited August 8, 2020 by LeeHore7

[Nik271]

Dear Nick,

Astromaster 130 EQ was my first telescope. The mount is easy to set up and lightweight but not very stable. As Brian said keeping the legs short will improve stability.

I also recommend suspending a bag with some weight below the tripod. Something like 3-4 kilos should make it stabilise quicker.

Another factor to consider is the magnification. Astromaster 130 has a spherical mirror and if you increase magnification above x70 the picture will get mushy and the shaking will be much more obvious. Having said that I had great views through that scope, especially of deep sky objects like M27 Dumbbell and M42 Orion nebula. Eventually I wanted something for planets  and I got a Skymax 127 which is lighter and sits better on the original Astromaster mount. But for wide angle starry views nothing beats a short focal length, fast Newtonian like the Astromaster. Enjoy it! 

  Nikolay

[Ruud]

Please check if all the bolts are tightened firmly (especially those at the top of the legs) and weigh the mount down. To dampen any remaining vibrations more quickly, put the tripod on washing machine anti-vibration pads.

[Louis D]

I recommend putting Sorbothane pads under each tripod foot to dampen the vibrations in short order.

[Tippon]

Hi Nick

I've just logged in to ask the same question. I went out recently and tried some astrophotography, but by the time I got anything in focus and waited for the mount to stop shaking, whatever I was trying to get a photo of was somewhere else in the sky 🙃

I'm going to be trying again next week if the weather holds, but I'm going to try shortening the legs on the tripod, and putting it on a soft surface to see if that helps. As others have said, I'm going to try pads under the legs too.

Good luck  

[Denjans]

Thanks for the advices! I will shorten the legs and hang some weight in the middle. I have seen some good images of the moon, Saturn and Venus. I’m generally happy with the telescope but just want to fix this issue 😉. just 1 more question, is 70x magnification really the Max with this telescope?

Nick

[Tippon]

19 hours ago, LeeHore7 said:

I used to have an astromaster 130eq, the mount isn't the best for steady imaging, you could try adding a weight hanging from the centre of the tripod to help with stability and a marmite or peanut butter lid will make a good fine focuser to cut down some vibration when focusing, I used a marmite lid with a bolt and just bolted it on the focus wheel, I recently upgraded to a skywatcher 150p and skymax 127 with a eq3-2 mount and much steadier 

Hi Lee

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you just attach it to the grip to make it a bit easier to move?

[AstroNebulee]

5 hours ago, Tippon said:

Hi Lee

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you just attach it to the grip to make it a bit easier to move?

Hi Tippon 

What I did for my astromaster 130eq marmite fine focuser lid is drill a hole dead centre of the lid, then unscrew the bolt holding the focus wheel on the telescope, then placed the lid over the focus wheel and put a slightly longer bolt through the hole and attached to the focus wheel, this makes the focusing much more fine tuned, I hope this is easy to understand, I'm not good at explaining things haha, clear skies 

[Steve Clay]

Try hanging some weight under the tripod. This should help with some of the vibration.

[Tippon]

On 09/08/2020 at 09:07, LeeHore7 said:

then placed the lid over the focus wheel and put a slightly longer bolt through the hole and attached to the focus wheel

So you're essentially turning the Marmite lid then? I'll have a play in the next few days  

[AstroNebulee]

5 hours ago, Tippon said:

So you're essentially turning the Marmite lid then? I'll have a play in the next few days  

Yes as the lid will be placed over and  attached to your original focus wheel with a longer bolt, makes a great fine focuser ☺️

[Nik271]

On 09/08/2020 at 00:35, Denjans said:

Thanks for the advices! I will shorten the legs and hang some weight in the middle. I have seen some good images of the moon, Saturn and Venus. I’m generally happy with the telescope but just want to fix this issue 😉. just 1 more question, is 70x magnification really the Max with this telescope?

Nick

The mirror suffers from spherical aberration which means that it does not focus all the light from its surface to a single point and the focus is spread out. If you look  at a star say at x100 you will find it never becomes pin-point with diffraction rings/spikes but it is a small 'blob'.

There is an easy way around it: Reduce the aperture! You could for example make mask from cardboard, of say 80-90mm diameter and attach it to the front. It does not even have to be centered or perfectly circular, and actually it's a good idea to  make it offset to try to avoid some part of the secondary mirror obstruction. The focal ratio of the telescope changes from F5 to F7/F8 and the spherical aberration for visual use is then much less noticeable.  The downside is of course that the mirror is not collecting as much light, but you only use big magnification for planets, the moon or some double stars which are fairly  bright and don't need all this extra light. Actually for the moon you may prefer the stopped down view since it can be unpleasantly bright to look at at full aperture.  Another downside of stopping down the aperture is loss of resolution but even a 80mm scope has plenty of resolution to show you detail even at x150 on the planets. 

Clear skies!

 

Nikolay

[BrianHes]

24 minutes ago, Nik271 said:

The mirror suffers from spherical aberration which means that it does not focus all the light from its surface to a single point and the focus is spread out. If you look  at a star say at x100 you will find it never becomes pin-point with diffraction rings/spikes but it is a small 'blob'.

There is an easy way around it: Reduce the aperture! You could for example make mask from cardboard, of say 80-90mm diameter and attach it to the front. It does not even have to be centered or perfectly circular, and actually it's a good idea to  make it offset to try to avoid some part of the secondary mirror obstruction. The focal ratio of the telescope changes from F5 to F7/F8 and the spherical aberration for visual use is then much less noticeable.  The downside is of course that the mirror is not collecting as much light, but you only use big magnification for planets, the moon or some double stars which are fairly  bright and don't need all this extra light. Actually for the moon you may prefer the stopped down view since it can be unpleasantly bright to look at at full aperture.  Another downside of stopping down the aperture is loss of resolution but even a 80mm scope has plenty of resolution to show you detail even at x150 on the planets. 

Clear skies!

 

Nikolay

The lens cap, which covers the end of the tube when not in use, has a cap which can be removed giving a small aperture. Is that that is for? Always wondered. I have tried looking through the telescope with it like that. Image seems unaffected apart from being darker. Must give it a proper go 

[BrianHes]

Having now had a good play with my Astromaster, tightening everything that looks like can be tightened, and weighting the tripod, I am left with 1 obvious source of movement. The screw which controls the RA slow control. I can’t see any obvious way of reducing play. Has anyone got any prior experience?

[DaveL59]

can't speak for your mount but on my skywatcher EQ2 the RA worm carrier looks to be held with a couple bolts and there's a collar on the end of the drive. Might be possible to adjust a little to improve the running if it's too stiff/slack but I've not needed to so can't advise on method. Is you're too stiff/slack or is it just vibrations when turning the control?

You can't really get away from your turning input setting up vibration unfortunately, but adding the clock drive on the RA can help as once target is acquired the mount will track for itself so not need further manual adjustments or few of.  Assumes that you have managed to get the mount pointed north and roughly polar aligned and latitude set correctly of course.

To speed damping the vibrations, shifting the weight up the shaft and adding an extra weight can help as it lowers the moment of inertia, but you might find something like a bit of soft/medium foam (6x2x1 inch, say) that you gently hold against the tube when making adjustments may help. Never tried this but worth a try if you've some laying around, similar principle to a shock absorber.

[Nik271]

46 minutes ago, BrianHes said:

The lens cap, which covers the end of the tube when not in use, has a cap which can be removed giving a small aperture. Is that that is for? Always wondered. I have tried looking through the telescope with it like that. Image seems unaffected apart from being darker. Must give it a proper go 

I'm not sure but I suspect that this small cap is for putting a filter to look at the sun. But yes it can also be used for any bright object, especially on the Moon. It may be too narrow to get good resolution to see very small detail, but the overall image should be much sharper. 

Nikolay