Tweaks to my 8" DOB

[geppetto]

I used the twenty minutes or so last night between the sky getting as dark as it was going to get and the appearance of the full moon

to test out the setting circles on my DOB.

Also, it was a first time using the scope with a homebuilt 18" tall platform under it to raise the eyepiece to a comfortable level (a real winner).

The circles have red LED lights illuminating the scales, powered by batteries in a switch box screwed to the DOB base.

First off, I got the coordinates of Sirius and carefully set the RA circle to match. The DEC is no problem because it is an inclinometer on

the OTA and needs no setting up. The sky was still bright so not a lot was in sight but I turned the scope to the coordinates of Saturn and

then Mars. Both appeared in the FOV of my 26mm 2" eyepiece. A little later, M44 M67 M37 M51 all hit the FOV no problem.

Very pleased with this, as with minimal setup, I should now get more time looking at objects than searching for them.

Also I wanted to know roughly the FOV of the 8*50 finder. Looking through it at Ursa Major, I could get Mizar on one side of the FOV

and Alioth nearly on the other. They are about 4.5 degrees apart so I reckon my finder is about 5 degrees FOV.

The full moon was up by now so had a look at the rays that were lit up brightly and of course I couldn't finish without a long look at Saturn.

Packed up about 10pm feeling very happy about my gear and looking forward to a clear moonless night

Below is a picture of the scope with its light on 8)

[Jamie]

Sounds like a winner to me Philip.

Looks lovely too.

[Albireo380]

Great 'scope and good idea re "tweaks". A friend of mine got the Revelation 10" Dob a couple of months back. The build quality is good and the optics excellent. The Revelations may be inexpensive, but are not "cheap". They are excellent 'scopes.

Enjoy - clear skies.

Tom

[FLO]

Good post GP

[Naz]

Good tweaks there GP, you have got the best out of a simple design.

naz

[lunator]

Phil

Those are excellent improvements.

You hit the nail on the head. The best tweaks are the ones that give you more observing and less searching time.

Cheers

Ian

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Must be the best bang for the buck I've heard of for a long time. Great project and a great result. You have now got me thinking about some electronic compass thing I read about somewhere, supposed to be accurate to "plenty good enough" and that would take all the setup out of the system. New, improved Dob. finder system, based on proven STUFF!

If I find the source I'll post it, this is promising for the world of DOB.

Captain Chaos

[Greg]

Looks good,

[geppetto]

electronic compass thing I read about somewhere

That would be good CC although on my setup the Az seems good enough as is.

What I'm keeping an eye out for is an electronic inclinometer. Some come up on Ebay

from time to time and one of those would give better reading accuracy than the one I have now.

The ultimate will be a DOB with a soon to be released Celestron gadget which points at the sky

and tells you what your looking at (drool drool).

Still, its priced a bit rich for Geppetto Towers

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

But would that help you find stuff? I mean telling you what you have found is all well and good, but if you're looking for, say M101, and it goes "nope.......nope......nope...." you're not much better off. With your kit you can get in the ballpark very easily. L02BQ or A43FK from Maplin could be what you are looking for as far as a compass is concerned, you would then need no setup time.

Captain Chaos

[radioactive]

very nice tweaks geppetto looks the biz mate very well done