Truss dobs work a lot better when…..

[Stu]

……you remove the mirror cover 🤬🤬🤣🤣

I spent about ten minutes trying to find the Moon unsuccessfully before I realised! 🤪🤪

Still got my dob L plates!

[John]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

……you remove the mirror cover 🤬🤬🤣🤣

I spent about ten minutes trying to find the Moon unsuccessfully before I realised! 🤪🤪

Still got my dob L plates!

We all do this stuff from time to time !

A couple of nights back I had the Tak 100 setup and after a gap in the session I popped back out again to have a look at M42. I could not get anything in focus which confounded me because I'd been having lovely views of Jupiter an hour before. 

What I forgot was that I bought the eyepiece in when I came in for a break and forgot to take it back out again. So I was staring into an empty diagonal barrel in the dark wondering why I could only see vague lights where before had been sharp and sparkling stars - dohhhh !!!! 🙄

When I had the Meade Lightbridge 12 inch truss I'm sure I recall leaving the mirror cover in place more than once !

 

 

[Saganite]

I spent a similar amount of time trying to focus the Moon tonight  by putting different lengths of extension tube in the focuser despite  knowing exactly what was required, before I realized I had not screwed the OCS into the diagonal.....

Edited February 16 by Saganite

[Captain Scarlet]

I spent a few minutes wondering why my 1.25” eyepiece with a 2” skirt simply would not focus. Of course I had the cover still on the 1.25” barrel 🙄

[Nakedgun]

~

"Terribly disappointed in this scope's performance on M13!" (lunar filter still screwed on)

 

 

 

.

[Stu]

Thank you all for reassuring me it is not just me that does these daft things!! 🤪🤪

[Saganite]

I should add that I often spend an equal amount of time trying to focus single eyepieces before realizing that the OCS  IS in the diagonal .........😟

Edited February 17 by Saganite

[Stu]

8 hours ago, Captain Scarlet said:

I spent a few minutes wondering why my 1.25” eyepiece with a 2” skirt simply would not focus. Of course I had the cover still on the 1.25” barrel 🙄

I’ve done that one a few times too!!

[Paz]

I still do the lense / mirror cover left on thing, that one never gets old!

Glass path corrector are also a common source of my observing fails. I may be observing cyclops and there's still a gpc hidden somewhere in the optical path that I forgot was there, or I'm binoviweing and I find out the gpc in place isn't the one I thought it was etc etc.

Edited February 17 by Paz

[JOC]

I'm sure on one occasion (or more!) I fogot to pull the truss Dob out to its full length and only went to one cick and not both - that also plays havoc with your ability to gain focus.

[Pld]

I did something similar recently. I keep my telescope in a chest inside the garage and purchased a ZWO294mcpro camera before Christmas, which I fitted in place of a 585, but found that due to other items in the chest it was an inch of two too long. Rather than shortening the dew shield, I wound in the focusser and it fitted inside ok. By the time we had a clear night I had forgotten that I had done it and spent an hour wondering why the Asiair would not platesolve anything. Eventually I made the guide camera the main camera and went to Rigel, platesolved  ok, then switched back to the main camera and saw the problem, got it focussed and all was ok. What a waste of the first clear night in weeks.

 

 

[Zermelo]

14 hours ago, Stu said:

……you remove the mirror cover 🤬🤬🤣🤣

I spent about ten minutes trying to find the Moon unsuccessfully before I realised! 🤪🤪

Still got my dob L plates!

on the plus side, leaving the cover on means that you don't need to bother with a shroud.

[Stu]

5 hours ago, Zermelo said:

on the plus side, leaving the cover on means that you don't need to bother with a shroud.

Very true, plus no dew problems either. It could be the future you know!! 🤣

[DirkSteele]

I may have used a 1.25” mirror diagonal inside a 2”-to-1.25” adaptor and forgot to take the cover off and then wondered why I only saw black.

Thought it didn’t take me 10 minutes to realise my mistake! 😉

[Stu]

What was most confusing was that a fair amount of light was reflected off the cover, so it didn’t just look black. I kept thinking I was seeing the kind of increased brightness just out of the field of view when the Moon is nearby, so I kept on trying!! It finally dawned on me when I stepped away from the eyepiece 🤪

[Stephenstargazer]

You really ought to try using a finder of some sort ? Gives you 2 chances of messing up 😂

[Stu]

1 minute ago, Stephenstargazer said:

You really ought to try using a finder of some sort ? Gives you 2 chances of messing up 😂

I know, I broke my TelRad, that’s what made it worse!

[The60mmKid]

I got really worried once when, forgetting that I had my OIII filter threaded in, I took a look at M31. "What happened to it?!"

[Whistlin Bob]

I've found that truss dobs are complete rubbish... when you forget the trusses. Once met up with a pal at a dark site half an hour away, unloaded the car and traipsed across a field and only realised my error when I started to assemble the thing.