20/04/2010 by yesyes.

Today I’ve tried collimating my telescope for the first time. I’ve used a Cheshire Collimation Tool. First inspection shows that collimation is not too bad but could use a bit of adjustment. I followed the instruction in Astro Baby’s guide here:
http://www.astro-baby.com/collimation/astro%20babys%20collimation%20guide.htm

It took me about 1 hour to do the collimation. It looks much better now through the Cheshire tool. I did go out with the scope after collimating it but shortly after setting everything up the clouds rolled in and stayed. So I had to pack up. I did manage to get a glimpse at a star and do a quick star test to see how collimation has improved. It did look a bit better and more round when out of focus. But I’ll have to wait for my next observing session to see if viewing has improved.

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29/09/2009 by yesyes.

29/09/2009:

I got lucky. After unpacking and test-assembling the new scope I had a quick look outside. CLEAR SKY! unbelievable!

So I took the scope outside and had a quick look through it. I was amazed. Sooo much better than the previous smaller one.
I didn’t play with the GoTo yet, Just pointed it at the Moon and Jupiter manually and unpowered.

Here’s a few pictures taken quickly through the eyepiece with my digital camera handheld:

The Moon:

And Jupiter with 2 of its moons:

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29/09/2009 by yesyes.

29/09/2009:

YAY!
My new telescope has arrived! Ordered yesterday, arrived today.

It’s a Celestron C8-NGT 8″ Newtonian reflector on a GC5-GT mount and it’s HUGE!!!

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