USER OBSERVATIONS Last updated: 25 January 2004

Subject: ETX-60 observations...
Date: 1/23/04, 19:45
From: ROBMURR@aol.com
Great website! Will get your book too!

First clear night out in my light polluted backyard with the ETX-60...

Here are some mods I did mostly swiped from your website...

1. Flexible focus cable...a must have, no two ways about it.

2. Finder scope...got the red dot sight with dimmer switch..another must
have.

3. Better tripod..I built mine from aluminum crutches for about $15
total cost.

See this sites Tech Tips, look for crutch tripod. Very sturdy.

I put velcro around the tripod top to hold flashlight and autostar.

4. Glare shield...made from flexifoam? from the craft store and some
velcro.

5. I made some attachments to my bubble level and compass so that they
can fit into the eyepiece holder to make it easy to level and point the
scope north.

Ok, to the north I have giant trees, south is more open. I level the
scope base on the tripod, level the scope tube, then point it north..Try
to do the alignment... It picked two stars hidden by trees..told it was
ok but it was not...never got it to align properly. Decide to use the
one star alignment instead on Betelgeuse... From then on alignment was
fine..went to Rigel, Orion nebula,Sirius,Pleades and a few other M
objects. Told the scope to go back to Orion, found it just fine. Not
sure why I cant get it to align any other way but one star method.

Stars with both supplied eyepieces look pin sharp in the center, less
sharp towards the outer part of the eyepiece. I did try the scope for
just a minute manually the other night on Saturn and Jupiter. I could
see two bands on Jupiter and the rings around saturn but I was using the
3x barlow and saturn was not that clear. I am thinking of getting the 2x
instead.

My previous scope, the Orion short tube, gave better views of Saturn
than the ETX-60 but I was using much more expensive eyepieces and a
lower power barlow then. Have not been able to try this on the moon
yet...

Either I am in a very light polluted area where I cant identify or find
anything or I am somewhere where I am overwhelmed with dark sky and too
many stars to try and find my way around...thats why this scope is so
important to teach me where things are...books on stars just have not
been very helpful to me...

I wish this scope had been around 30 years ago when I had an old 3 inch
homebuilt reflector on a terrible Alt/Az mount!

Rob   

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