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Hello @markmcmanus. You have to purchase the one fitting whatever focuser you have. The one for the Diamond Steeltrack is is the S58a. Loosen the 6 small grub screws securing the 2" clamp to the dovetail of the focuser, using the hex key supplied with the ClickLock, and mount the Clicklock instead. You will find all the variants here: www.baader-planetarium.com/en/baader-2inch-clicklock-eyepiece-clamps-from-t-2-to-4-1inch.html?sku=2956258 CS

@flemmingsastro thank you so much 😎

Pyh! Det er vist det man kalder et godt spørgsmål. :) Som altid er der fordele og ulemper ved begge slags. Jeg har aldrig selv ejet en Mak, men jeg kender folk der bruger dem. Maksutov optikken består jo af et sfærisk primærspejl med en sfærisk negativ korrektionslinse i forenden og er ikke særligt lysstærke, d.v.s. de har et lavt f-tal, sædvanligvis f/15 eller lavere. Det er en følge af det optiske design. RC'en ligger gerne omkring f/8, og giver derfor kortere eksponeringstider ved fotografering. Til gengæld er Mak'ens lange brændvidde velegnet til planetobservation, da planeterne er relativt lysstærke men meget, meget små og kræver stor forstørrelse. Sekundærspejlet i en Mak er også betydeligt mindre end RC'ens, hvilket er en fordel ved visuel observation. Hvis man bruger en RC visuelt kan man ved lysstærke objekter, som f.eks. Månen eller Venus opleve at skyggen af sekundærspejlet viser sig som en sort plet i midten af synsfeltet. Men altså kun ved visuel observation. Ved astrofoto har det intet at sige. En fordel ved RC'en er dens åbne konstruktion, der giver en hurtigere temperaturudligning af spejlene. Dem der bruger Maksutov'er stiller som regel deres teleskoper ud til afkøling adskillige timer før de skal bruge dem. En anden fordel ved RC'en er at den kun består af to spejlende overflader, ingen linser, og derfor giver et meget skarpt billede uden kromatisk abberation. Imod Ritchey-Chretien designet taler at teleskopet kan være lidt besværligt at kollimere, men det kan være at det samme gør sig gældende for Maksutov teleskoperne, det ved jeg desværre ikke. Jeg håber at ovenstående giver mening. Mvh. Flemming

Yes, when they are close to the sun, comets are fast movers.

Yes, it seems like the way to do it. It does, however, only align the focuser to the secondary mirror holder, not to the seoondary mirror itself. Final collimation on a starfield is stil necessary. CS

@@flemmingsastro We use retroreflection to align the optical path in a laser annealing system for semiconductor manufacturing. It's a 3,500 watt CO2 beam but we use a low power red beam to align the optics, very similar to how you aligned the focuser. I had been trying to think of something similar to align the other optics in a telescope when I came across your video. There might be a way but it's probably over thinking it and conventional methods are still best for the mirrors. Btw, I'm new to the telescope hobby, it's something I want to get into but probably not in a big way until after I retire in a couple years.

Mange tak. :)

Absolutely, and if the camera is still within warranty I would not do this myself, unless instructed to do so by the servicing agent. I wouldn't want to send it directly to ZWO, though, because of the lead time which could be over a month, but I did send it back to the european service center in Germany, which by the way has always yielded great service, to be treated for this problem. This happened when I had only owned the camera for 9 months and it was still under warranty. The thermal pad was exchanged for the improved model, and the camera cleaned, but the problem did not go away, and I have now done the servicing myself twice since then. Maybe the procedure has been improved since March 2022, and I would absolutely advice you to return the camera for service if you see this problem, unless, of course, you like to tinker like I do. As you can see in the video, the process is not very demanding. Cheers, Flemming

Tak for kommentaren. Vi må håbe at du slipper for besværet.

Hello. The short is just a teaser for the long form video where I show all of my process. You may find the video here: th-cam.com/video/ztDfTDpuI38/w-d-xo.html

The telescope was in very bad collimation at the time, so I had no preferences as to the orientation of the mirror or any other part of the optical train. If your scope is in top notch configuration it may be a good idea to mark the position of everything. I suspect that disassembling the scope will necessitate a renewed collimation no matter how careful you are but I guess it won't hurt to reinstall everything in its original orientation.

Thank you for your comments, and my apologies for not getting back to you earlier. I'm not sure I follow all of your arguments, but I do agree that my process is a little crude and naturally limited by the equipment I own. While the method for finding the optical axis of the primary is sound, I think, as only a point on the axis will reflect a focused image back on itself, using the laser for aligning the focuser will only point the focuser at that point; it will not make sure that the focuser is actually on the axis if it is not precisely centered. It is, however, a good approximation, and in the end the proof is in the pudding as they say, or in this case, in the stars. The final collimation will always have to be done evaluating the images of the stars.

Thanks! CS to you too. 🌌🪐

Hello. Good question, which means that it is hard to answer conclusively. Platesolving your image will tell you the focal length (FC) provided you have entered the correct pixel size and sensor dimensions into your acquisition software, and the FC of an RC scope is very sensitive to the mirror distance. A single millimeter change in the distance will change the FC of the scope by several millimeters. However, you cannot be absolutely sure that your particular optical system performs best at the exact FC specified by the manufacturer. In my experience the collimation of the mirror angles is way more important for the image quality than the last millimeter of mirror distance. Right now my scope, which is not perfectly collimated yet (I'm still working on it) is at 1621mm focal length, where the nominal FC is 1624. When everything else is perfect, I may experiment with distance again, but until then I'm not worrying about it. Greetings and CS

Hi David.Thanks for the advice. I did not notice any locking screws in the retaining ring on my scope. If I have to do this operation again I'll certainly be on the lookout for them.

@@flemmingsastro at 16.04 when you show the mirror to the camera, you can see the two threaded holes where there should be two small grub screws to lock the mirror lock in place so it cant unwind. they might not be there in your spec rc, but they are there in mine. but both scopes will be GSO so i guess itl be down to the suppliers specs.

It came with the scope when I bought it second hand, so I can't be absolutely sure, but I believe it is this one www.teleskop-express.de/en/adaptors-10/adapters-tilting-327/ts-optics-m90-tilting-adapter-flange-for-astrophotography-4272

@@flemmingsastro Thank you!

@@Excessus1978 You're welcome.

Thanks. Have a nice day.

Hello Diego, and thank you for your question. There is nothing preventing the mirror from rotating except friction against the retaining ring and the back of the mirror cell, so yes, that would be normal. Mine did not rotate easily, when the retaining ring was tightened, and there is probably no outside interference which would cause the mirror to rotate. Then again, the mirror should be rotationally symmetrical within the tolerances, so even if it did rotate I would not expect you to notice any problems. I would advice you not to tighten the ring excessively, as the pressure could cause deformation of the mirror which would certainly influence its performance optically (pinched optics).

Grazie mille

To me, at least, it looked cleaner afterwards.

Thanks a lot, your kind words means a lot to me. If the clouds part at some time I'll make sure to make some more videos.

Thank you for your kind words (and subscription :) ). From what I've seen on astrobin.com, a star tracker and a zoom lens goes a long way. Provided we get some of those clear skies.

Yes, when the secondary mirror holder and the screw is removed the laser goes through the hole for the center screw. If it doesn't the focuser and possibly the primary mirror is very much out of alignment. :)

@@flemmingsastro, ah, thank you for clearing up that confusion. I just upgraded my focuser to the Baader Diamond Steeltrack and also got the tilting plate. My laser collimator arrives today, so I will be aligning everything using your instructional video.

Thank you for your comments.

Hi @mark2220 and thanks for your comment. I agree the GSO focuser is sort of ok for manual focusing. My problems started when I attached a focus motor to it. The focuser was not moving in a predictable manner, and I could not get autofocusing to work.

I did, yes. There was no difference. Also, the motors doesn't come with their own PSU's, as there is always an abundance of 12V outlets around astro-gear. The Eagle astro-computer has S/W controllable 12V outlets to supply the mount, the camera and focusers, rotators, filter wheels, dew heaters and whatnot, so in the beginning I was using that. The alternative PSU was one that came with my mount, but which I'm normally not using because I power everything from the computer. You may read more about the Eagle here: eu.primalucelab.com/computer-and-software/eagle/

Thanks Mikael, I’m trying to keep my spirits high even though my skies are low. 🙂 Working on a short equipment related video to be released soon (I hope).

Those are very good questions, though I'm not sure I have any good answers. But I'll try. Neighbor lights may be blocked by trees, of course, but that's perhaps a long term solution. Then again trees can be in the way if they get too tall, so some tree felling may be in order. Difficult balance. Talk to your neighbor about the lights, maybe a compromise can be reached, and the lights dimmed, turned towards the ground og maybe switched off on observation nights. About those pesky clouds, well, I guess I too am in the market for a solution to those. Perhaps your father could help? ;)

Thank you for your comments, Nicholas.

Hello Patrick. Thank you for your comment, and your kind (but probably futile) wishes regarding the weather. About the spikes, remember that light bends perpendicular to the direction of the edge of the obstruction. I haven't tried this myself, but I think that changing the thickness of the obstruction does not create wider spikes by itself, but if the edges of the mask does not go through the center of the lens opening (or very close to it as in this case, being wire only a couple of mm thick) the spikes will get more fuzzy and fainter. So maybe they will appear wider, but at the cost of being less well defined. But try it out and see what you get. It should be easy to 3D print masks, or even cut them out of black cardboard. Best, Flemming

BTW I see that you have a lot of fine videos yourself on your channel, which I will be taking a closer look at soon. 😅

Absolutely. My old iPhone 7 has the Measurement app, which, besides measuring tilt, will also try to guess distances from camera views. It is not reliable for interstellar distances, though. :o) There's probably something similar on Android systems.

😁

Tanks! Glad you liked it. I am not sure how well it comes across, but I'm not a huge fan of unboxing videos. :)

Ja, det synes jeg. Hvis du mener astrofoto, kan du finde mine billeder på www.astrobin.com/users/FlemmingK/ og ellers kan du finde to nye videoer her på kanalen, som er lagt op indenfor de seneste to uger. Der kommer snart til at ske noget mere, specielt hvis skyerne skulle finde på at lette.

@@flemmingsastro ja det er astrofoto jeg mener😂 jer har blot været igang i 2 år i min baghave i Måløv og ja, venter også på skyfri nattehimmel

I first align the focuser with the primary mirror, using the focuser tilting ring. When that is done, I mount the secondary and align the primary mirror to the donut in the middle of the secondary mirror using the screws on the back of the telescope proper. This moves the mirror and the focuser as a unit. In order to see the center donut you find its reflection in the primary mirror looking through the front of the telescope. Maybe watch that part of the video again? Lastly I adjust the secondary until the laser dot is returned to the center of the laser target. If you cannot find the reflection of the secondary's center donut in the primary mirror then your telescope is probably mounted with a primary baffle extention, which you need to unscrew and remove from the tube. Some earlier versions of the scope did not have this baffle extension.

Hæ hæ! Tak skal du have. :)

Thank you. Your positive critique means a lot to me.

No trouble at all. I ended up buying the following directly from the Baader-Planetarium.com web-shop: 2" BDS-RT BAADER DIAMOND STEELTRACK FOCUSER Part nr. 2957210 RT-ADAPTER M90X1 DIAMOND STEELTRACK® (SKYWATCHER) Part nr. 2957283 The focuser is very sturdy and smooth running, and there is no discernible backlash making it a joy to use. As a personal preferece, because I don't trust myself with thumb screws holding the camera, I also ordered the BAADER 2" CLICKLOCK EYEPIECE CLAMP S58 clamp (Baader Diamond Steeltrack) Part nr. 2956258 The clicklock clamp gives you a very firm hold on the camera and is quick and easy to use, so I would recommend it unless you chose to screw the camera directly on to the focuser. I will post part two of the video very soon, showing the installation of the focuser, so stay tuned. Best regards, Flemming

Thanks! Stay tuned for the follow up video where I show my process for adjustment after the reassembly. I just need to get some editing time in. :)

It's an extra. I got something like this: www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p14792_Tecnosky-secondary-mirror-heater-for-8--and-10--RC-telescopes.html

Thank you for your positive comments. Water is a wonderful all-round solvent, except for oily substances, and it is great for removing particulate matter. If I had a difficult grease spot, or perhaps the remains of a long dead insect on the mirror, I would be comfortable with using sensor cleaning fluid for spot treatment, but I find that in most other cases less is more. I have had little luck with collimation till now, so my advice would be to place your trust in someone else, at least for the time being. 😉 I have however chosen the path of eliminating weak links in the optical path, hence the change to a better focuser, and I will soon be posting a video of me aligning it with the mirrors using some optical tricks.Hopefully I will be able to achieve good collimation soon. Don't forget to 'like' the video, and maybe subscribe to my channel if you want to see more videos of this kind.

Hej Hanspeter. Hvis du skal have et nyt teleskop som det jeg står med her, kommer du af med omkring 20.000DKK. Hvis du bare vil kigge stjerner, og lære at finde rundt på himlen, så vil jeg anbefale noget enklere, f.eks. en Dobson kikkert.

Hej Casper. Beklager at du måtte vente så længe på et svar, jeg må blive bedre til at holde øje med kommentarsporet. Lige denne kikkert tror jeg ikke man kunne få til af følge en satellit så hurtigt hen over himlen, men der er garanteret teleskopmonteringer som kan. Der skal så noget speciel software til at styre det hele, men det ligger uden for mit interesseområde, så der må du ud at lede på nettet. Mvh. Flemming

Hej Claus. Er du kommet videre med dine foto-planer? Mvh. Flemming

@@flemmingsastro nej desvære det blev for teknisk for mig så jeg har skipper kikkerten. Men tak for interrassen Claus Falk

Thanks. I'm afraid it's going to be in Danish for the time being, but you're welcome to tag along. If you subscribe, you will be reminded automatically when I post new material. Just sayin'. :)