First C14 - tips and techniques?

Hello to all,

I just purchased a 15 year old Compustar-vintage C14 OTA with Starbright coatings and am asking the folks out there in C14 land on the best way to care and feed it. It will be a traveling C14 too.

Any words of wisdom on collimation, preventing dew/frost, focusing issues, and the like? Thanks for your time.

Jon

Collimation is easy enough using a "star test." Use a
bright star overhead, image slightly de-focused,
at high power.

Dew is tough. Get a dew shield and a Kendrick heater
strap, and something that can put out 12 volts at
5 amps all night long. There is a very fine balance
between avoiding dew and not make heat plumes that
degrade the image. A small fan blowing across the
corrector plate can help -- you still get a very fine coat
of fog, but not the heavy dripping dew.

Focusing: get a JMI NGF-S. Its a separate electic
focuser that goes on the back of the scope. No
image shift or focusing jiggle.

Cool down can be an issue. "Cat cooler" gadget
helps. Blows filtered ambient air through the inside of the
tube.

By Compustar - you mean the early "GoTo" correct? If so have you done the y2K upgrade? These scopes are not compatable with y2k and needed a chip upgrade (third party vendors not celestron).