Well I got my Orion 200 F4.5 SPX today. Bit taken aback by the size. It is in the living room where I have been giving it glances all night!
Have put the guide rings & plate on & tried the WO ZS66 in them.
Have not tried it on the mount, as it has been quite windy outside & I am not that familiar with its size & weight to rush outside & set it up. Can imagine it falling to the ground. I will do it tomorrow & take my time. Have been very busy all day today, anyway, so a bit tired.
Will post a picture when set up.
Then....................hope to get some galaxies!!!!!!!
Good Luck Fay.
We wait in anticipation. ;)
Tony G
Take some pictures Fay.
That's great Fay, hope you didn't stay up too long admiring it ! Of course having bought a new scope we'll be expecting Thunder and rain for the next few weeks but I'll forgive you :)
I'm looking forward to that first light image so I hope we don't have to wait too long.
Robert
I hope so too Robert. The fly in the ointment may be if I have to collimate straight away!!!!! Would not like to loosen the wrong screws!!!!!!! :surprised:
Quote from: Fay on May 13, 2009, 09:11:44The fly in the ointment
Fay,
I had a spider in mine, :) which eventually led to the scope coming apart to retrieve the little blighter, which didn't go down to well with the collimation of the scope when re-assembled. :evil: Still Robert sorted that for me last night.
Thanks again Robert.
Good luck Fay, and hope you don't have to do any collimating. :-?
Tony G
Quote from: RobertM on May 13, 2009, 08:13:54......we'll be expecting Thunder and rain for the next few weeks .......
...and indeed we have RAIIINNN !!!!
I have set the Orion up, in the living room, but it looks like my 2 Skywatcher weights are not heavy enough.
The scope is top heavy, to the left, at the moment, with finderscope & WO fixed on. I will move it back in the cradle and rotate the tube to the right a bit.
Ok, I have moved the tube quite low in the cradle & turned it to the right a bit & it seems ok. The finder scope & focuser are now on the right.
It is ok without the WO on top, but they are quite heavy little scopes & make a bit of difference to the overall weight.
Have moved it with the handcontrol.
Details: Orion 200 SPX F4.5, Hi Lux reflectivity coating, larger primary mirror, precision 10: 1 reduction drive focuser.
Well, set up in living room yesterday, but balancing was a problem. Setup again in garden, today, & thanks to invaluable advice from Robert, to put the focuser underneath pointing to the weights, it has balanced with all equipment & cables on.
Guess which picture shows a near disaster..........................not too good an idea to set up under a tree......................good job cover was on............oh the air was bluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue!!!!!
(http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww124/virginiafay/OrionSpiderVanes2.jpg)
(http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww124/virginiafay/Orion200SPX.jpg)
(http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww124/virginiafay/Orion200SPXAtik314L.jpg)
(http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww124/virginiafay/Orion200SPX.jpg)
Oooooo... nice & shiney - I think you should get yourself a white camera though so all the colours match :-)
It looks like you have taken the safety screw for the weights off so you can push them down a little further? If this is so I would highly recommending putting it back & buying yourself another (or larger weight) - The last thing you want in the depths of night is a weight falling off & either doing serious damage to you or your scope as it whizzes around the mount...! I can imagine what you said about the bird poop...
Can't wait to see your first light - setup looks very pro. RU going to consider a more permanent setup now - looks like it could be hard work taking this lot up & down all the time?
John
You have got good eyes John, regarding the weight safety screw. Yes, I will have to do something about it, it made a differeence.
Regarding putting it up & taking down, I have not been spoilt & am getting well trained in the job!!!!!!!
Where can I pick up another weight? It would be a bit expensive to send through the post? I do have some lightweight one's Tony gave me, they are for the WO when it is on the mount on it's own. A couple of them may do the trick.
Yes - I think they would work OK - just try it & see - It doesn't look like it needs much extra. Other thing is perhaps contact telescope house or Bern - you could always go & pick one up. Leaving the safety screw off is a definite N0-NO!!!
John
will sort that John. Telescope house would be good, as I can pick it up. I wonder if they do lighter one's
You can pick up from Bern as well & he is a lot closer.....
Nice scope, shame about the poo !
Well, John, Tony gave me 3 x1kg, I am thinking I will only need 2, so shall use those.
Quote from: Fay on May 14, 2009, 15:21:34
will sort that John. Telescope house would be good, as I can pick it up. I wonder if they do lighter one's
if you want to get ripped off yeah!
Quoteif you want to get ripped off yeah!
Well Mike in their defence when I bought my LXD75 from them a few years back it only came with one weight. I quickly found out that when I put MN56 & guide scope on I needed two weights. I gave them a call & they actually told me they had a used one (bit scratched etc. but what the heck) & that it was mine for free if I picked it up...
Good service if you ask me & certainly not a rip off...
...and they replaced my RA drive board, checked the whole scope and gave me a new Autostar last time my LX90 went wrong. All for free. They felt a bit guilty as it had a history over its two years and also found a lot wrong when they finally looked closely. I like Telescope House.
I think Carole had a few replacements & swaps by TH as well! They were on first name terms at AstroFest the other year! :lol: :lol:
Fay,
I have a spare weight you can borrow, do you want me to run it around tomorrow?
Chris
that is kind of you Chris. What time was you thinking, not around in morning
about 6pm
Great Chris
Robert, they Zygo on Fay's scope has it as 12th wave :o .986 streath.
:o
That's not a whole strewth then !
12th wave sounds ok, is that RMS or Peak to Valley ?
not quite a whole one, no.
IIRC that'll be 986 G'days. A *really* good telescope could be many strewths. Maybe as much as a goodonyamate.
There's been some discussion (can't for the life of me remember where, might have been QCUIAG) regarding Orion's Zygo report. There was some concern about the interpretation of the interferometry. I'll have to see if I can find it, but it was to do with the numbers not telling the whole story regarding surface roughness. However, 12th wave is none too shabby RMS or P-V...
Ok, this is what my report says for my little 6" er, apparently a 1/6th wave.
Strehl 0.976
PV 0.144
RMS 0.025
AstMag 0.069
Fay, can you get your report and put the same figures up.
Chris,
strehl 0.987
pv 0.122
rms 0.018
astmag 0.020
:o
found the discussion I mentioned. It was on QCUIAG. In brief, here's a web-page one of the guys has put together discussing interpreting interferometry, common faults and their impact on star image.
http://www.digital-flight.com/thebigeye/Optical_quality/optical_quality.htm (http://www.digital-flight.com/thebigeye/Optical_quality/optical_quality.htm)
That's very interesting Ian, I had also read that thread on OO mirrors though to me it did seem a bit picky and that someone had a bit of a chip on their sholder about OO mirrors.
I thought that too, but it's an interesting article nevertheless.
Well, tried to get going last night, to no avail. Did not expect miracles.
Besides mount flashing, could not find my target, thought at least if I could focus etc, that would be ok. All stars had a drift look going towards top right. It could not be drift as only doing 2-5 secs & stars did not move out of view. So has collimation slipped ? I had the cc on the atik & filter wheel, also took cc off & just used Atik & filterwheel, in case the connection is wrong, but result the same.
Will have to make mount a bit higher.
T ring stuck again, filter wheel in fridge but have a feeling I will not be lucky a second time!
Any solutions welcome :)