Testing a 6" Ritchey-Chrétien Scope
Sep 21, 2022 14:48:19 #
I recently acquired a third-hand RC6. I checked collimation upon receipt and found the secondary was badly misaligned; right off the scale of my laser collimator. Fixed this problem and assumed the primary was good; but I forgot "assume" expands to an 'ass of you and me'. All the stars in my test imaging are decentered.
I shot six targets with the RC6, Sony A7 III on an iOptron CEM26 mount. I won't make you suffer through large versions of these images.
Time to get out the artificial star and laser collimator and do a thorough alignment. I remember the process from a few years ago with an RC8; took me two days of tweaking to get it in good collimation!
Enjoy!
bwa
I shot six targets with the RC6, Sony A7 III on an iOptron CEM26 mount. I won't make you suffer through large versions of these images.
Time to get out the artificial star and laser collimator and do a thorough alignment. I remember the process from a few years ago with an RC8; took me two days of tweaking to get it in good collimation!
Enjoy!
bwa
M13 Hercules Cluster(50x30sec,ISO6400)_PI_ABE_MStretch_PS(A-P)_StarFix_LR
M15 Pegasus Cluster(45x30sec,ISO12800)_PI_ABE_MStretch_PS(A-P)_StarFix_LR
M27 Dumbbell Nebula(38x30sec,ISO6400)_PI_ABE_MStretch_PS(A-P)_StarFix_LR
M56 Globular Cluster(39x30sec,ISO12800)_PI_ABE_MStretch_PS(A-P)_StarFix_LR
M57 Ring Nebula(52x30sec,ISO6400)_PI_ABE_MStretch_PS(A-P)_StarFix_LR
NGC6960 West Veil Nebula(40x30sec,ISO12800)_PI_ABE_MStretch(0.10)_PS(A-P)_StarFix_LR
Sep 22, 2022 02:08:17 #
bwana wrote:
I recently acquired a third-hand RC6. I checked c... (show quote)
The scope has promise by the looks of it mate.
How well does the RC hold it's collimation especially when being transported?
Best of luck
Marc
Sep 22, 2022 04:03:20 #
Marc G wrote:
The scope has promise by the looks of it mate.
How well does the RC hold it's collimation especially when being transported?
Best of luck
Marc
How well does the RC hold it's collimation especially when being transported?
Best of luck
Marc
I suspect the previous owner actually dropped the scope. At least the camera attached to the scope was destroyed.
It took me most of the afternoon with Cheshire and laser collimators to get the scope back to reasonable alignment. I finalized the alignment on Vega. It is fortunate my wife is visiting her sister or she might have objected to some of my language when I turned screws the wrong direction and made things worse...
It is rare for a RC scope to ever have the primary mirror go out of alignment. If anything, all that is required is a minor tweak of the secondary. In this case the primary mirror was off by a full turn of the adjustment screws which, of course, seriously impacted the secondary mirror alignment. But it is now back to factory specs and I shot eight targets with it this evening/morning. We'll see how they turn out!?
bwa
Sep 25, 2022 17:13:04 #
bwana wrote:
I suspect the previous owner actually dropped the ... (show quote)
I'm looking forward to seeing the results of your tweak.
You were getting pretty close with the first set, I've definitely seen worse from my scopes.
Clear skies.
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