New Scope!

Once again, the clouds have remained resolutely in place, so what to do but mollify my needs by buying a nice new telescope!

 It is a TS Optics 6" (150mm) f/4 Newtonian, nice and fast for imaging. However, it came in the post, which means it's been plenty jossled in its travels!

I originally worried that there was something awry with the focusser, as it was very stiff and made a grinding noise. Turns out I hadn't taken into account that the focusser is presumably designed for imaging, and thusly to hold on to big heavy cameras. This means there are a number of tightening bolts on the mechanism which I'd neglected to loosen! Phew! No Problem.

Next problem isn't going to be so easy, and is going to take a lot of tweaking and, probably, swearing. There is a collimation issue, of course from the postal service! However, I'm less than expert at collimation, having only ever used a big Dobsonian. Whilst these need collimation, it doesn't need to be nearly as precise as with an imaging setup.

So, it's time to show you first light. Might seem to a reader as a step backward, as the focussing is terrible, but the image is only a single 1 minute sub, so there's clearly plenty of light arriving at the sensor.

Well, it's a starting point, another one, but there's still a mountain to climb. Once I have the collimation sorted on this puppy, then it's time to set out on the trying adventure that is autouiding! Wahey!