Observing Reports
April 2006
02.04.2006
Installed the Synscan upgrade, very easy to complete and only took around 1 hour….only problem was getting the DEC and RA screws out, I wrecked three of them trying!!!
Wow the slew speed of 9 is impressive, cant wait for first light.
03.04.2006
This was first light for the new Synscan upgrade and it seemed to work not too bad for a rough test.
I didn’t polar align very well as I just could not figure out how to see anything through the polar scope (need to read up on this).
Tested using a 3 star alignment but I really need to learn more stars, so I ended up trying a 2 star alignment as it was faster. Once that was aligned it tried to view Saturn and it went to the wrong area, checked my setting and I had the wrong date and time!
Reset and tried again……..my finder scope just won’t align with the main scope…ahhh! (more reading)!
Ok this time re-aligned the scope and tried for Saturn this time…..whoohoo! it went in the right direction. Ok not on Saturn but near enough for just messing about.
The motors are actually quite loud and they were making a crunching noise and I recon the RA gear was slipping. Back to the garage to sort it out and found that the RA gear didn’t seem tightly meshed with the larger RA gear. That’s now sorted so I’ll try this out another night.
04.04.2006
This is great another clear night in a row…..
The polar scope within the mount was perfectly aligned with the DEC rod so when I rotated in RA the polar scope did not alter position. I just don’t understand how the positioning of the rectile works with what the manual says…..just doesn’t work (need help on this). Cant even find Polaris while looking through the polar scope but it could be that the hole was not clear so I need to rotate the mount in DEC a slight bit. I gave up on this in the end.
Had a quick look at Saturn but the view was not that great and I was pretty sure the scope was badly out of alignment. Collimation was required.
Tried Synscan again but the motors started that grinding noise again so I took the scope back into the garage. Taking a look at the gears again showed that they still seem to be slipping when the scope slews to an object, I just don’t understand this.
Ok its time to give collimation another try but this time I made a small hole in a eyepiece cap and found collimating the scope very easy. I was right the scope was well out of alignment. Should I try Saturn again? Yeh! why not?
It was darker and Saturn was still pretty high in the South but this time the view was absolutely stunning! I could finally see the Cassini Division clearly all the way around the rings and the band on the planet was a lot stronger. I could not believe the view, it was amazing! Seeing was still pretty bad but the fleeting moments told me that the collimation worked a treat. Wonder if I could squeeze a bit more detail out?
My wife came out to take a look as well and was stunned at the difference from the other night.
Next I took a quick look at the moon and the craters appeared sharper with more detail than I have ever seen.
This is great! Now if I could only get Synscan to work.
05.04.2006
Success!!!
Synscan works great! I used a two star alignment and it centred Saturn, then went over to the Christmas Tree cluster then M51 (couldn’t see M51 very well as the moon was out).
The gears seemed to slip when the scope was not balanced; I only heard the screech once so I hope that’s the last of it.
I still cant figure out this polar scope stuff, Polaris doesn’t seem to show up in the scope. Also the DEC rod seems to be in the way so to have a clear path I have to rotate the scope a tad.
Seeing was getting better so I thought I would give the toucam another try on Saturn.
I could see the Cassini Division on the laptop monitor so things were going well. Captured quite a few avi’s and the images turned out really well.
Time to pack up as my hands were freezing.
21st April 2006
Sky was clear all day and it held up at night too.
The view to the East was blocked due to six large fir trees, but after a few quotes I arrange to have them removed. The contractors arrived on Friday and took them down revelling a large unattainable before sky. This has opened up the garden in our new home so much. The view is excellent. A full view of the North, East, South sky….Wow!
So I set the scope up around 11pm managed to (I think) polar align the scope correctly. I didn’t level the mount mainly due to me forgetting too do this. I really need a list of setting up instructions.
Next up was to balance the scope and this was fine until I dropped the reflector while trying to balance the DEC. No damage but I think I lost my collimation. After that was completed that was me ready.
With Starry Night as my guide (sitting next to me on my laptop) I managed to carry out a 2 star alignment which worked very well.
I managed to jump to different M objects so fast it was unbelievable! Slewing to objects was fast and smooth. The list below shows the amount of object I viewed in such a short time.
M13, M92, M3, M64, M63, M51, M94, M106, M82, M81, M5, Jupiter, Saturn, M65, M66, M96, M13, M57, M53, M40 and to finish with Mizar.
What a night, this goto system is simply outstanding!!!!
Managed some new images of Saturn and Jupiter but I think (as stated above) the collimation was off.
An excellent first proper night in our new home…..well am I happy HELL YEH!