First light with Celestron Astromaster 130EQ

[stepintoliquid]

ok, here we go....


managed to get the scope out tonight after the mount was balanced. didnt get a chance to align the finderscope, and didnt have the tool to collimate it, but figured lets give it a shot anyways. and..... it didnt go so bad.


started with the moon, of which not much was viewable and then it dissapeared beneath the horizon. thats when i started top realize this wasnt as easy as i thought it would be lol.

moved over to orion, and decided to look for orion's nebula (m43?)
and after scanning the area for a little, i found it! was very cool, and prob the highlight of the night.

then i moved to saturn, and i can see a faint outline of its rings through 33 and 65x zoom eyepieces. that was a very cool moment when i realized i was looking at its rings.

had to end the night there, because the girlfriend was getting too cold.



a few observations....

the eq mount is gonna take a little bit of time to get comfortable with. also, i need to set the latitude adjustment a little more accurate, as tracking with the ra knob could have been more precise.

also, the scope seems to have a case of the shakes.... especially with the 1mm eyepiece. was tough getting saturn crisp with the focuser, because each touch caused it to jiggle for a good 4-5 seconds. kind of a bummer....

also, the erecting image eyepiece is way easier to use than the standard eyepiece.

flipped image + eq mount + 10mm eyepiece = impossible.

anyways, thats all for now. if anyone has any insight to the shaking problem, feel free to help me! its not the tripod that seems to be the problem, but rather the shaking is from the eq mount and up.

thanks for reading!

[stepintoliquid]

oh, forgot to mention that i performed the start test, and the image/reflection wasnt perfectly concentric, so i guess a collimation is needed.

[Vinnie]

Hi S.I.L.

When you say the mount itself is shaky, if you were to get hold of the scope and wriggle it in either axis can you feel slack in the gears, as in does the mount allow a bit of free play. If yes there are adjustments for this but I'll have to take a few photos here to explain these.

flipped image + eq mount + 10mm eyepiece = impossible.

You'll get used to that. Trust me it quickly becomes second nature.

Nice first light report BTW

[stepintoliquid]

thanks for the response vin.

ok, i think i may actually have corrected myself on the wobble issue.

its not so much slack in the gears, as it as just a wobble caused by the weight of the scope.


buuuuut..... i think it was being cause by too much of the scope's mass being foward of its mount. i just moved the ota farther back in its cradle, and that seems to have reduced the vibrations greatly.

then kept the whole thing balanced by scooting the ota and its cradle forward on the mount itself (if that makes any sense.)

hopefully that will have cured the dreadful wobble!

[FatherGuse]

Good reading Sil ... glad you could get her out tonight ... and Congrats on First Light with your new scope ... you'll get her dialed in quickly ...

[Vinnie]

thanks for the response vin.

ok, i think i may actually have corrected myself on the wobble issue.

its not so much slack in the gears, as it as just a wobble caused by the weight of the scope.


buuuuut..... i think it was being cause by too much of the scope's mass being foward of its mount. i just moved the ota farther back in its cradle, and that seems to have reduced the vibrations greatly.

then kept the whole thing balanced by scooting the ota and its cradle forward on the mount itself (if that makes any sense.)

hopefully that will have cured the dreadful wobble!

No Worries

Just a comment here for other readers re scope balance. Every advertising photo of a scope on mount, and every photo on packaging etc always shows the tube nice and central in its rings and dead centre over the mount head. It must make a more appealing image, but I don't think that I have ever seen or used a scope yet that was actually balanced correctly when positioned as per the advertising pictures.

[admin]

Awesome thanks for the great feedback Great viewings though, must have really enjoyed it!

[TambourineMan]

I decided to go with a dobsonian mount based on the experiences of tripod wobble with my toy telescopes from long, long ago. I guess the trade off is the increased difficulty in tracking as you have to move the scope both up and down and right to left rather than on just the equatorial axis.

Anyway I remember reading that there are ways to reduce wobble besides the one you tried already - such as sand bagging the legs, or hanging weights down from the center.

As for collimation, if it is close already then you can optimize it with the star test. From what you wrote I am not sure you were doing the star test the way it was explained to me. The best star to use is Polaris as you do not have to keep aligning it to keep it in the field of view and it is the proper magnitude. Focus it as best you can and then bring it out of focus both ways (in and out) and watch the hazy, fuzzy rings form around the star in the center. If they are not perfectly circular and equidistant both when out of focus in and out, adjust your collimation screws so that they are.

[star drop]

Congratulations on your first light, SIL.

[stepintoliquid]

thanks guys.


unfortunately, as i get more time with this telescope, it becomes more and more disappointing.


for some reason mine has been difficult to balance... for instance when it seems i've balanced on one side of the ra, the other side is out of balance.

also, the ra tightening knob makes contact and rubs against one of the setting circles everytime it goes past, which is slightly annoying.... as are the other parts that all make contact with each other as the scope is rotated around.

and as i mentioned before, the ota shakes quite a bit when touching the focuser... the only way this could be solved was moving the ota farther back in its mount, which results in the scope being out of balance.

and the red dot finderscope doesnt work either.

the idea of sending this back seems like such a huge pain in the ass though... i might give it one more shot tonight.