Well that was a complete fail....

[swlloyd3]

Finally I get my camera, tripod and telescope ready and CLEAR SKIES!

Have not got the laptop for guiding yet but thought I would test out my brand new canon 1000D on a few targets (also my first attempt at astrophotography DSO)

Anyway I ran into alot of problems which ultimately ended in an epic failure of an imaging session

First off my Skyscan handset was playing up with and would not initialize and when it did would randomly freeze, I had also forgot to align the finderscope to the telescope so I was stuggling to put the target in the eyepiece even after poor polar alignment and a few tries as GOTO 2 star alignment..... Then in the dark I put the wrong eyepiece in and for some reason didnt realise until halfway through alignment number one!

After all of that I managed to get some half attempted alignment complete and told the scope to go to M45.... this was waaaayyyy off so I decided to just manually move the scope onto the target in order to try out some very short exposures (30seconds), the scope seemed to be tracking so I attached the camera into the eyepiece hole and turned live view on.... Now should I be able to see stars? Because I could not see anything? and when I took a photograph it just came out as a very badly focused image of a massive disk and spider vanes!

Tried at all different distances from the tube and even inserted an 'extended' section off a barlow lense and still could not get anyway near focus!

The telescope is helios 6" reflector, 750mm focal length....

Is this a difficult scope to get focus on?

I even tried attaching directly to the eypiece socket straight from the T-ring and still could not focus!

I must be doing something wrong but surely its not that difficult to find focus??

Any ideas? or should I just go and buy myself a refractor?

Ste.

[dmahon]

Get a really bright star in the centre of the field of view before you attempt to focus for the first time with new equipment and then use a Bahtinov mask. Anything else and it seems impossible.

[NickK]

Hehe! I had fun with focus too - I'm thinking that a mask is the way to go for fine focus but finding the backfocus range is fun. My EP on the Pentax requires more focus extension than the camera but the vixen the camera needs full extension plus a bit!

You could try the extension+diagonal just to see if it is the focus point being way longer.

[swlloyd3]

I actually just had a bahtinov mask laser cut at my university, but the problem is from the images I have taken they are not even close!

It seems strange considering I have had the camera literally attached to the telescope via the T-ring all the way to a nosepiece+t-ring-extension piece and still could not get anywhere close to focus, just a massive disk of light and spider vanes?

Do you think it is a result of not enough extension length? or too much?

Ste.

[Sparrow]

Ste - I don't know what scope you've got, but if it's a newtonian, then the usual focus problem is lack of inward travel. The focuser can't move in enough to achieve focus.

The usual suggestions to solve this problem are either to move the primary mirror up the tube - not something I personally would like to do, or to fit a low profile focuser which is what I've done.

WHen you get the image of the disk with the vanes showing, adjust the focuser inwards and see if the disk gets smaller - if it does then that's the direction you need to focus in. If you get all the way in and still have a disk then the lack of inward focus is dedinately your problem.

John

(Also in Chester)

[swlloyd3]

Thanks Jon, I do believe that is indeed the issue!

Now the problem I have is whether or not to buy a £120+ low profile focuser, or just sell the reflector and EQ-3 mount (never used) and buy myself a much easier starter scope for astrophotography (i.e an APO refractor)....

Ste.

[tonyh66]

Ste - I don't know what scope you've got, but if it's a newtonian, then the usual focus problem is lack of inward travel. The focuser can't move in enough to achieve focus.

The usual suggestions to solve this problem are either to move the primary mirror up the tube - not something I personally would like to do, or to fit a low profile focuser which is what I've done.

WHen you get the image of the disk with the vanes showing, adjust the focuser inwards and see if the disk gets smaller - if it does then that's the direction you need to focus in. If you get all the way in and still have a disk then the lack of inward focus is dedinately your problem.

John

(Also in Chester)

This is always a problem, Skywatcher sell newts with a direct camera attachement on the focusser, but it is absolutely no good as you cannot acheive focus. A lot of inexperienced folk get pulled in by that and are ultimately disappointed.