The other night, a new, young club member brought his new Meade 4.5" shorty GoTo reflector and asked for help in adjusting and using his scope. Usually when asked to adjust a GoTO scope, as a neo-luddite, I want to Run-From. But a young gazer needed help. I said "sure," and not realizing what I was delving into, began my usual collimation procedure. It didn't take long to discover that collimation was a real adventure even for me with 32 years of newt experience! This scope has a very fast primary and an internal barlow that permits the extremely short tube. At one point we had collimation nearly dead on, when the internal barlow (mounted at the bottom of the focuser) fell out and rolled down the inside of the tube. Good thing it had a plastic housing and couldn't hurt the primary. It had been held in with a small spot of glue. We pressed it back in hoping for the best. Collimation slipped out many times, usually due to picking up and moving the scope to find the best viewing locations around the parking lot.
Mars came up and after one final tweaking, we tried 140X with a red filter. Well waddya know! A polar cap and some clear markings, with no obvious optical problems! The 7mm Nagler eyepiece I supplied did help, of course. We even boosted the power to 280X, still pretty good image. I praised the optics to the scope's owner and gave him a lot of encouragement. What did I learn with this scope?
1. Too much plastic in the ota, resulting in fleeting
and frequent collimation.
2. Too fast a primary, too sensitive to align easily.
3. Glued Internal barlow (Release Primal Scream Here)
4. The scope is a joy to use if the collimation, the
barlow, and the patience of the user can hold. The
optics appear to be surprisingly good, and the
whole package is compact and elegant, but not cheap.
5. Never, ever make a new astronomer feel bad about
his scope, especially young and short on cash.
Anybody else have experiences with this scope and others like it that are sold to beginners?
Mars came up and after one final tweaking, we tried 140X with a red filter. Well waddya know! A polar cap and some clear markings, with no obvious optical problems! The 7mm Nagler eyepiece I supplied did help, of course. We even boosted the power to 280X, still pretty good image. I praised the optics to the scope's owner and gave him a lot of encouragement. What did I learn with this scope?
1. Too much plastic in the ota, resulting in fleeting
and frequent collimation.
2. Too fast a primary, too sensitive to align easily.
3. Glued Internal barlow (Release Primal Scream Here)
4. The scope is a joy to use if the collimation, the
barlow, and the patience of the user can hold. The
optics appear to be surprisingly good, and the
whole package is compact and elegant, but not cheap.
5. Never, ever make a new astronomer feel bad about
his scope, especially young and short on cash.
Anybody else have experiences with this scope and others like it that are sold to beginners?
