Dusting off the old telescope

[almach]

First off, hello to everybody from the latest n00b.

I have an Orion Dobsonian (6 inch) which has not seen much use in the last couple of years. This is about to change, but I was wondering if anybody has any advice on giving it a "service"? I've got a feeling the word 'collimation' might be involved so any advice on that would be greatfully appreciated as I seem to remember having problems with it 8)

Also, my passion is double stars which I highly recommend anyone to point their telescope at, some of them are very beautiful. If I were to change my telescope, what would be the best for that activity? [Edit] Just seen http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,34652.0.html which answers this...sort of [/Edit]

Cheers

Andy

[John]

Hi Andy,

Check your 6" newt out - if it's an F/8 it might be pretty good at double stars itself. Otherwise somthing like a Maksutov-Cassegrain or a Refractor (long focal length rather than the shrt types) would suit.

There is plenty of advice on here about collimation - with F/6 and longer newtonians it's generally pretty straightforward and should hold quite well once it's set.

My last scope was an F/6 8" dobsonian and that proved suprisingly good at double stars when it was in good collimation.

John

[almach]

Check your 6" newt out - if it's an F/8 it might be pretty good at double stars itself. Otherwise somthing like a Maksutov-Cassegrain or a Refractor (long focal length rather than the shrt types) would suit.

There is plenty of advice on here about collimation - with F/6 and longer newtonians it's generally pretty straightforward and should hold quite well once it's set.

Thanks for the advise John. Mr Google informs me I do indeed have an F/8 and it did seem to do the job when I was active a couple of years ago. Problem is, as a complete beginner, I don't know if it's as good as it could be.

I'll do a search on collimation and have a look at doing it this evening. Looking out of the window at work, I can see that I won't be looking at the sky tonight