HI Geza,
Congratulations on your new Dob!
We willl be happy to show you how to collimate your Dob.
If the sky is clear you might want to bring it to the San Jose
Astronomical Association's Friday Night Houge Park star party.
http://www.svpal.org/~jvn/hotline.htm
The problem with not seeing the Cassini Division clearly could be
the collimation of your scope. It could also be the "seeing". The
air between Saturn and your scope may have been disturbing the image.
Maybe the mirror wasn't close enough to the outside temps. Or, it
could be all of these things hurting the image of Saturn.
The Great Red Spot is not red (at this time). It is a large pale oval in the
southern edge of the Southern Equatorial belt.
We can also check out your focuser. I haven't tried an Orion focuser
lately. Focusers are so important to the ease of using a telescope it
is worth spending the money for a good focuser.
Clear skies,
Rich
>Hi,
>
>I have just recently bought an 8" f/6 Discovery dobson. So far I have spent
>4 nights observing and it was very nice. However, I have 2 problems.
>
>1. My focuser (2") moves not only in and out of the tube (to focus the
>image), but it also moves up and down (about 1mm). Depending on where the
>focuser is, collimation can be anywhere from okay to way off. I was thinking
>about buying a new focuser but I don't want to spend more that $100 on it.
>Are the Orion focusers any good?
>
>2. When I collimate the optics it seems that the reflection of the spider in
>the main mirror is not in the center of the main mirror (this could be an
>optical illusion - I'm not sure). I didn't want to mess around with it, so I
>left it alone.
>
>Last night (dec. 26th 1:30 - 2:30am, Saratoga) I checked out Saturn and
>Jupiter at 200x (6mm Radian). I let the scope cool down for about 30
>minutes. I could make out the cassini division but it was not very clear. On
>Jupiter I could see 2 dark cloud bands with a white region in between them
>and 2 more white regions at the poles. I could not see the great red spot
>(according to calsky it was visible). The images didn't seem well focused.
>Moving the focuser up and down (not in/out of focus) and refocusing the
>image afterwards didn't improve the image.
>
>I was wondering if somebody could take a look at my scope sometime next week
>(when the weather is nice) and give me some advice on what needs to be done.
>
>Thanks. Happy holidays and a happy new year,
>
>Géza Kurczveil
>
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