i had my telescope out to a new observing site tonight. it was my first time at this site and despite the eastern wind forcing me to move behind some trees i really enjoyed the location. the skies on the other-hand were as cooperative as a child after downing some mountain dew and pixie sticks. it was like looking through fog … the objects i was able to find never really came into focus and i never got to really push my new eyepiece either. oh well, maybe next time.


i did however learn another new lesson on this outing. once the scope is completely set up: collimate the mirrors once, remove the collimation tools from the scope and then do it again. i spent about 2 hours with a miscollimated secondary mirror and was wondering why i couldn’t get basic stars to focus 100%. turns out that i didn’t have my laser collimator properly seated in my focuser which caused it to be out of collimation when i adjusted the secondary. i should have known when i had to adjust my secondary a lot after setup. i had never had to adjust it that much after a tear down and setup of the scope. oh well, it’ll never happen again that’s for sure.