I captured this earlier this week with my Orion F4 Astrograph. It was the first time I had used it since last October. Partly because I didn't feel like dealing with the collimation, but mainly because it had suffered the worst thing that can happen to scope more or less. Now for the story. I bought the telescope used a few years ago and it came with what I think is an actual Vixen dovetail plate. I only say this because the exact same kind of dovetail came on with my Vixen ED81S. Anywho, the dovetail only had a small area around 3 inches or so that would actually fit in the saddle of my mount, despite it being around 11 inches long. The same was true on the plate with Vixen ED81S, only it was around 7 inches long and white. The dovetail failed on me twice and both times I was able to catch and save the scopes. For some reason I replaced the plate on the ED81S but not the F4 Astrograph which weighs roughly 3 times as much. Well it fell, and I wasn't able to catch it. The impact knocked the focuser drawtube right out of the telescope. That was actually the brunt of the damage, besides a few scuffs and a small dent in the ota that isn't even that noticeable. All in all I'd say I was lucky as I was able to get the focuser reattached and it still operates very smoothly too boot.
So that was really the main reason that I haven't used the thing in over 6 months. I finally got over my fear, got it mostly collimated and got some time on the Sunflower Galaxy, 4 hours to be exact. Anyhow, if you read all that you're a champ
I used my ASI174MC-Cool and for processing I used DSS, Siril and Photoshop.
Thanks for looking and clear skies.
-Mike
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Edited by Mikeiss, 20 April 2024 - 12:09 AM.
