I have been fighting the mirror alignment on my XT-8 since I purposely threw off the mirrors 4 years ago in an attempt to learn how to align the mirrors correctly...
As per the Orion manual, I made a tool out of a 35mm film container, punched a hole, and aligned the circles...
Later, I bought a laser collimator from an Astromart vendor, and tried to align the beams...
Somehow, I knew that the mirror alignment could be better, the images seemed to be missing something, Sure, there were moments of excellent clairity, but I now know that it was pure luck!
I read some threads on the forums, and I tried something that finally got my mirror problem corrected!
I used the laser on secondary alignment only, and the film can for primary alignment, the result was a razor-sharp Cassini division on Saturn that I have been so long striving for!
I realised that I had only one mirror aligned at a time, that is, the film can aligned only the primary. Later, I had the secondary aligned with the laser, but I rarely had both aligned at the same time!
I knew that all was right when the moon's outline was not round, but a series of jagged arcs, Very uneven, and I knew that my early XT-8 was indeed a keeper! The moral of this thread is, don't give up on your scope, keep trying different options, and read the Astromart forums!
Chris Brown
As per the Orion manual, I made a tool out of a 35mm film container, punched a hole, and aligned the circles...
Later, I bought a laser collimator from an Astromart vendor, and tried to align the beams...
Somehow, I knew that the mirror alignment could be better, the images seemed to be missing something, Sure, there were moments of excellent clairity, but I now know that it was pure luck!
I read some threads on the forums, and I tried something that finally got my mirror problem corrected!
I used the laser on secondary alignment only, and the film can for primary alignment, the result was a razor-sharp Cassini division on Saturn that I have been so long striving for!
I realised that I had only one mirror aligned at a time, that is, the film can aligned only the primary. Later, I had the secondary aligned with the laser, but I rarely had both aligned at the same time!
I knew that all was right when the moon's outline was not round, but a series of jagged arcs, Very uneven, and I knew that my early XT-8 was indeed a keeper! The moral of this thread is, don't give up on your scope, keep trying different options, and read the Astromart forums!
Chris Brown
There's something on the Moon! 8O
