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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Trail run of the New and Improved C11 SCT

05 June 2011

Clear Sky Clock says all good for an evening of astronomy.

The C11 is all back together, and with some minor tweaks, I'm anxious to see it in action. I will most certainly need to collimate for the next couple of sessions, but let's see how far off it is.

I will set-up by the Adler Planetarium area by 8pm and if all works well, catch Saturn.

If free or in the area, stop by and say hi.

[patrickm]

Dag! You posted this 8 mins after mine! I woulda not had I known. Have already notified too many friends...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

A Disappointing Shake-out session....

Technically not a star party, but we did get many visitors to come up and see what we were doing. Chicago Astronomer Bill brought his Newt and Steve his ipad. I brought the C11 to shake out the bugs...but it let us down...

As expected, the collimation was off...not too bad, but Bill and I wanted to firm it up as close as possible...and it got away from us. We spent the entire session adjusting the secondary with both me and Bill on the ladder tweaking the secondary screws while the other observed the reactions. Close at times, but we still had coma...and pretty bad.

Try as we did, we just couldn't get it into collimation, but as the visitors came by, Steve worked Bill's Newt and showed them Saturn and the Moon. I was disappointed that the C11 was out of action.

And...

The bases do not secure the 90mm rings well, as the scope w/ rings slipped out and hit the ground, causing minor damage to the dew shield. Some adaptation to the bases is in order to better secure them to the rings. Easy fix.

The desire to finish the collimation and to attend to the visitors was pulling me into two different direction...and I grabbed some quick pics of our audience....

With Bill's scope and Steve's iPad...they saved this session...

...although it really wasn't a star party.

The groups that came our way enjoyed what Steve was showing them and would like to attend more Chicago Astronomer activities.

Also,

New Chicago Astronomer fan Tony stopped by to say hi and share in the observation. I'm sorry that I couldn't get the C11 to performance standards and promise Tony a show for the next time.


I need to start from scratch for the C11 collimation and hope we are ready for our next session....

[patrickm]

Bummer d00d!

Sorry I missed it...or no.

The scope looks great and am sure the collimation will...


...wait for it...


work itself out.



Seriously, if anybody can get it sorted, it's you three!

Also serves to confirm my statement about me being off medication if you catch me trying these full disassembly stunts...

[RobbW]

Joe, I'm sure you probably don't need any pointers, especially from someone as inexperienced as me, but below is a link to a collimation article I found that has helped me immensely. I gives specific instructions on how to collimate the secondary of an SCT. And I mean specific as to which screw does what when you turn it, and so forth. This article made is soooo freakin' easy for me to collimate my C8, and by myself, too. It didn't require a two-man team.

It's kind of lengthy, but it is very useful. Enjoy!

www.astromart.com/articles/article.asp?article_id=548

[RobbW]

Too funny! I just now read your other post about trying to collimate the beast. I see that you already had a link to this very article. I gotta say, though, I don't understand why it is so difficult to get the beast collimated. Ed's article made it pretty clear to me exactly how to perform the task. Oh well, I'm sure you'll eventually get her in tip-top shape.

[patrickm]

My guess is that something got put in at the wrong rotation and needs to be reseated.

It could also be the replacement spacers putting it off center...

Yeah. He'll figure it out, I am sure.

Or maybe it will...

ah, never mind...
;D

[-=CROMAN=-]

Yeah. He'll figure it out, I am sure.

Or maybe it will...

ah, never mind...

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I address the problematic collimation we experienced during this shake-out test and correct it...

Details here:

astronomer.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=ATM&thread=3220&page=1

Still needs some final tweaking touches, but it's close enough for the next star party!