Posts Made By: Tom Nicolaides

The image was with a refractor? What caused the diffraction spikes? They do look good, and I'm used to seeing them in my newt.

Never mind, guys. I found it. There are two tiny hex head screws just over the focusing shaft at either end. Tightening these down increases the friction of the focuser.

I think I'm going to replace them with little rosette head screws so that I can use a light touch when using EPs and only the higher resistance when something heavy's attached.

Great idea for a topic, Tim...

One thing that comes to mind for me is using a filter. I use an 8 inch F5 newtonian. I've read about filters and tried quite a number of them. I never got any significant improvement out of any broadband filter I tried (Sirius CE, Orion Skyglow). But then I got a Lumicon UHC narroband filter. Enabled me to see certain nebulous objects MUCH better and one that I'd never seen - The Veil. It was an order of magnitude improvement, I'd say.