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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Collimation step two...what step two?!

Waited almost an hour for scope to cool down outside this evening. For the optical star test, all the provided extension rings needed to be added including a 2" eyepiece extension. Three-star aligned scope using the 1.5" insert and both a 15mm and illuminated reticle piece. Tracked on Sirius to conduct test. It is a wonderfully clear night, again.

Looked just fine. Nice round concentric circles. No warping as focused in and out. Pin point focus also provided sharp diffraction spikes across the entire field of view. Very nice.

Started taking shots of M81 without the field flattener. Have to say, the brighter image seen in the test shots was pleasing. No filter either, we'll consider this a test run on the new collimation.

Need to remember to not remove camera until after I've been able to create a new flat with this change to the optical configuration

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