Hello & Help Needed Re: Setup

[MichaelMcD]

Hi everyone.  English but live in southern Italy.  Apart from digesting obscene quantities of mince pies these past few days I've tried to get to grips with the telescope which Father Christmas delivered.  

Details of the equipment:

NT 150 L Newtonian Reflector 150/1200 f/8.0 Bresser Messier

I went through the collimation process and believe to have done this correctly.  Without the eyepiece in, I look through the hole and can clearly see my eye located in the centre of the circle and everything seems in order.  Problem is when I place the 25mm eyepiece in and try to focus into the changing rooms of the local female mudwrestling team on a house about 1km away  I get a very blurry image.  I can just about make out its outline, but when I remove the eyepiece from the hold and hold it just a centimetre from the entrance of the eyepiece hole I can see the image of the house almost perfectly.  Please see pics below.  

My questions are as follows:

1.  If I see my eye smack bang in the centre when doing collimation, why am I not able to focus on the house 1km away?  Even objects beyond that I can't focus on.  

2.  What's the explanation for the point about the eyepiece not being placed directly in the hole in order to see the house?

[Carbon Brush]

Hi & welcome to SGL.

Don't worry about collimation (yet).

The issue you have is the focusser needs to be further out. Apologies if you have done this.
But your photo shows focusser fully in.

HTH, David.

[AstroKeith]

Hi and welcome.

In the top photo, with the eyepiece held away from the focuser, the focuser looks like it is wound all the way in. Was this just for this photo or is this the problem?!

[fozzybear]

Hi and welcome to SGL as per @Carbon Brush any chance of a side photo of your focuser setup is yours the Hexa with the 2" extension fitted?

regards

Andy

[Knighty2112]

More than likely you have the focuser lock screw done up which stops you been able to adjust the focus. Slacken the screw directly underneath the focuser (larger silver one sticking out) and and this will allow the focuser to move in & out, more importantly in your case outwards so you can focus on objects correctly.

[MichaelMcD]

Thank you for your swift replies.

I extended the focuser and also extended as far as I could the circular clamp where the lens fits directly into, as shown below:

It's dark now so can't test on the aforementioned house, dare I grab my coat and brave it out onto the balcony?

[fozzybear]

Do you have any extra adaptors that came with the scope like a long 2" barrel? See page 2 

f7a77adb19c049bc6129bc4d28a704b9.pdf

Edited December 30, 2021 by fozzybear
added a document

[MichaelMcD]

@fozzybear thank you for taking the time on that, here are parts in the box which I have not yet used, the closest thing relating to what you mentioned is the black tube in the pic, but after numerous attempts it doesn't fit on the focusser or anywhere near, so maybe it's not meant for that.

[Carbon Brush]

Looking at a picture of this scope elsewhere, just racking out the focusser should do it, no adapters required.

 

[fozzybear]

the black item if 2" diameter thats the puppy you need add into the equation if you have the manual look at page 2 and the photo shows the adaptor after the hex focuser bit 

[fozzybear]

Found a better photo.

[Ricochet]

Remove this 2" clamp from the focuser. You will have to loosen the grub screw with a small hex key (2mm?, there should be one supplied) before you will be able to unscrew it from the focuser.

 

Find this extension

 

Screw the two together, then refit to telescope.

[MichaelMcD]

Is it too early in my membership to this community to declare my undying love for everyone involved in this thread?

I managed to twist off the focusser and add this extension.  

We're in business baby. 

Off out on the balcony now.  Cat's got enough food down for a week and the work out of office has been set.  

Will update you later.

Thanks again all!!!!

[fozzybear]

Glad you got it sorted in the end

 

[MichaelMcD]

Update - back from the balcony.  Quite windy out there this evening, not enough to blow the entire wig off, but certainly lost a few strands.

The Plossl 9mm eyepiece I used first worked well, but the 25mm Super Plossl eyepiece seemed to provide a better view of things (as was also outlined in the User Manual).

From the balcony I have the Plough directly in front of me and what I believe would be Saturn behind some buildings at about the 8 o'clock position as I stare open-mouthed at the Plough.  Will be interesting to see how well I can capture that or Jupiter if I can get access to them in the coming weeks (if that's even how the universe works).    

Homework for me (but would appreciate pointers if you have them, particularly from @Ricochet who looks like he/she has the same telescope as me!) --->

1.  Read up (via your wonderful forum here) more about what I'm seeing being inverted.  Not a major issue, just out of interest I will read more (or find a way to hang like a fruitbat while looking through the eyepiece which may resolve the issue).

2.  How useful it is setting the "coordinates" of the RA and Dec to locate specific stars/constellations - do any of you actually do this?

3.  The User Guide for my telescope states that "A favourite Winter object: M42, the great Orion Nebula".  I notice in their picture that they have a milky-way (again, you're wincing for my lack of understanding of astrojargon) - does anyone here see such milky goodness (again, I'm on a NT 150 L Newtonian Reflector 150/1200 f/8.0 Bresser Messier with a 25mm and 9mm eyepiece) or they see what I seemed to capture this evening which was "just" pinhead-sized dots.  I have a suspicion (possibly due to wind/atmospheric conditions/utter incompetence) that tonight I couldn't go "deep enough" (stop sniggering at the back there).  

Thanks again.  

 

 

[Pixies]

Hi,

Another Bresser newt owner here (200 dob). You are not the first to miss that adapter. I know someone who threw it out with the polystyrene packaging!

Have a look at this video: (same type of scope). It covers basic usage including setting up the finder.

I'd recommend the book Turn Left at Orion which is a very good guide on how to find stuff manually!

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Pixies

[Pixies]

Mind you - you can ignore the collimation part in that video - for now. 06:00 - 09:00

[Ricochet]

2 hours ago, MichaelMcD said:

@Ricochet who looks like he/she has the same telescope as me

I've got the 8" dob so not quite the same, but from the same manufacturer and series so some parts are the same or a similar design. 

1. All telescopes natively give an inverted image. Those with a diagonal may modify the inversion further, but for astronomical viewing it doesn't matter which way is up. 

2. You can use the coordinates with a go to mount, but for manual mounts the dials are too small and too imprecise to be useful. Learning the constellations and star hopping is the way to find an object manually. 

3. If you mean a nebula, then yes you will see this if you are looking in the right place, unless you are right in the centre of a city in which it could be possible to have enough light pollution for even Orion to be obscured. The 25mm eyepiece will be the correct one to use for this object. The nebula is actually visible as a naked eye object, and appears as the middle star in Orion's sword. If you have aligned your finder correctly this should make it fairly easy to find. 

If you mean the actual milky way then no, I can't see it from my home, but from dark sky locations it is visible to the naked eye. 

2 hours ago, MichaelMcD said:

what I seemed to capture this evening which was "just" pinhead-sized dots. 

All stars (except the sun) are so far away that they will only ever be a point of light in any telescope you can buy. 

2 hours ago, MichaelMcD said:

From the balcony I have the Plough directly in front of me and what I believe would be Saturn behind some buildings at about the 8 o'clock position as I stare open-mouthed at the Plough.  Will be interesting to see how well I can capture that or Jupiter if I can get access to them in the coming weeks (if that's even how the universe works).    

Ursa major is in the north east and Jupiter and Saturn are in the south west so I would think you will need to be on a rooftop balcony with a full view of the sky to be able to see both. The two planets are quite low now, and from my location Saturn is setting by about 18:30. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Ricochet

[Elp]

For locating using an app like Stellarium or Skysafari is best until you learn the sky as you go along. A Rigel quikfinder is also a great tool to use but not essential.