TheSkySearchers

The scratch is small and will not create any issues. I have one like that on my 9.25". On mine it is on the inside surface of the corrector plate.

Regarding the small imperfection on your corrector plate, I doubt you will ever notice its presence whatever job you are asking your OTA to accomplish. JMHO

The best way to tell if it will have any impact is to do a star test on the OTA. Look at the airy discs to see if anything shows up.

With a little guidence from Bigzmey I made my own Dew Shield like many of you have done out of 5/8 inch thick Foam Rubber and black duck tape.

Flyhigh7 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:40 pm With a little guidence from Bigzmey I made my own Dew Shield like many of you have done out of 5/8 inch thick Foam Rubber and black duck tape.

Well done! In my experience dew shields made from EVA crafting foam do better job compared to commercial metal and faux leather ones.

Heck of a lot cheaper. Celestron wants $199.95 for a metal shield smaller than the one I made for peanuts.

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 7:47 pm The scratch is small and will not create any issues. I have one like that on my 9.25". On mine it is on the inside surface of the corrector plate.

My scratch looks like it is on the inside too.

JayTee wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:31 pm Regarding the small imperfection on your corrector plate, I doubt you will ever notice its presence whatever job you are asking your OTA to accomplish. JMHO

I didn't notice a problem last night after I figured out the focus travel amount so I'm pretty sure you guys are correct.

FYI: My Celestron Focus Motor should arrive tomorrow. Pretty soon I'll have spent more on the Accessories
than I did on the scope but a lot of that is for the high quality EPs and the 2" Baader BBHS Star Diagonal (which I get to test out tonight).

Thanks!

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:45 pm compared to commercial metal and faux leather ones.

Hey, my faux leather (meaning plastic) is just as good as any other plastic dew shield!

Flyhigh7 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:09 pm FYI: My Celestron Focus Motor should arrive tomorrow. Pretty soon I'll have spent more on the Accessories
than I did on the scope but a lot of that is for the high quality EPs and the 2" Baader BBHS Star Diagonal (which I get to test out tonight).

Thanks!

That's quite normal. On the plus side you will cherish your quality equipment for years to come.

JayTee wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:15 pm

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:45 pm compared to commercial metal and faux leather ones.

Hey, my faux leather (meaning plastic) is just as good as any other plastic dew shield!

And they are definitely better than having no dew shield at all. But there are many advantages of making your own dew shields.

I make them for everything including binoculars, RACI and red dots. In addition to protecting from dew they also improve the contrast by cutting stray light.

Also, commercial dew shields are undersized. You want them to be at least 2x aperture in length.

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:25 pm I make them for everything including binoculars, RACI and red dots. In addition to protecting from dew they also improve the contrast by cutting stray light.

That's a good idea, Maybe I can do that for my RACI with my left over materials.

For those following my trials here is a summary of tonight's 9.25 Adventure:
So, tonight I saw the moon at 118x and saw craters inside the craters. Then I saw the different color bands of Jupiter and 2 of Jupiter's moons also at 118x. Tried going to a higher magnification but it was too windy and the wind was moving the scope enough that I couldn't keep Jupiter in my FOV long enough to focus.

Got further tonight with the star align using Sky Portal. Got 2 stars aligned before it loss the WiFi connection. That happened 3 times and then I gave up and was hunting manually for the Orion nebula but it was so windy I brought it inside. Sometimes when the scope looses connection it runs away in the direction I was last steering it with my hand off the button and it hits the mount and powering down is the only way stop it. That scary. Happened twice. I don't like wasting my time so I may just try to get used to using the handset if this WiFi Disconnect problem persists when I'm standing right next to the Telescope.

We got cloudy weather predicted for the next few days so that's a bummer.

There is not a lot of clearance to the bottom of the mount with that big 2" Diagonal if I set the scope in the bracket so it is balanced but I saw a video where the guy just sets it at a the end to give himself enough room so I may try that if that will give me enough room.

Thanks for listening!

Good progress Nick! That's too bad about WiFi connection. I think that happens more with mounts which were designed for the handset and WiFi was added later as afterthought. At least you have the handset as option #2. It should contain good size DSO database, but not as good as SkySafri.

Since SCTs are bottom-heavy you can push it all the way up to have a bit more clearance at the bottom. I typically lock it with only about 1/4" of dovetail sticking out from the clamp.

Yea, they say The Handset data contains 40,000 objects and that would keep me busy for a long time. I'm going to call Celestron Tech Support tomorrow but I'm sure the first thing they say will be to update the Firmware. I do like the features of Sky Safari.

The handset buttons glow red but not bright enough to read the button labels so I have to memorize the handset button layout.

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 2:20 am I think that happens more with mounts which were designed for the handset and WiFi was added later as afterthought.

It could be Bigzmey but I know from Engineering classes that motors generate Electro Mechanical Interference (EMI) and I think one problem with the built in WiFi is it is probably too close to the motors and is getting confused by the EMI. Every time I had a disconnect I was slewing a long way to my 3rd alignment star. I'll present this thought to Celestron Tech Support but even if it is true they may not admit it as would be admitting to a design flaw. It also may be more of a problem with the 9.25 size scopes as they are heavier and the motors are working harder. Not sure how that would effect the level of EMI though.

Maybe the solution is to swich the WiFi to a Access Point network but I don't have one out on my lawn. LOL!

I have a couple of GoTo mounts (SkyWatcher and iOptron) and been using them for a few years. One of them, AzGti, is very small (~4" across) so the WiFi card is sitting right in the middle of two motors. The other iOptron is heavy duty and can handle 9.25". Both hold WiFi connection quite well, one dropped connection every few sessions, and never in the desert where there is no other WiFi signal. So, I suspect that in my case dropped connection might be due to the phone looking for better WiFi signal.

BTW for both of my mounts I have to disconnect the phone from my home WiFi and connect it straight to the telescope WiFi.

You can put electronics next to EMI if you shield it properly with a grounded copper mesh. It could be they have shielding around the electronics or the motors could have good shielding or both. I've seen a lot of complaints about Evolution WiFi disconnect problems. Something is not right when my phone is never more than 2 feet from the Mount with the built in WiFi.

I spoke with Celestron Tech Support and we confirmed I have the latest firmware and he said the problem is more than likely the apps that are running in the background on my phone. I did have several apps running that I had no idea were running as I hadn't used them in months so I shut them off then shut Cellular Data off and did some tests and I didn't get any drop outs. I did get one confused movement by the telescope that locked up Sky Portal but maybe this has helped. I won't know till I get a successful alignment and that won't happen till the cloudy skies clear out a few days from now.

In the mean time I did install the Celestron Motorized Focus and it works great. I know we all like Motorized Focus so we don't have to touch the Telescope while trying to focus it but there is also another great reason for a Motorized Focus. The motor can make focus adjustments a lot finer than we can make with our hand so not only is the Telescope not moving when you focus but you can make more precise focus adjustments. It has three setting for how precise you want the focus to move. Here is a picture of it installed on the Telescope.

Making good progress there Nick! To help troubleshooting you could do one session just with the headset. If alignment, GoTo and tracking work smoothly you will know that there is no issues with the mount itself.

Bigzmey wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 1:12 am Making good progress there Nick! To help troubleshooting you could do one session just with the handset.

I was able to test that indoors today using a 1 star alignment to Polaris. I got the scope close enough (indoors) to where Polaris might be to test the 1 star alignment. That's how I tested the motorized focus.
The one thing I don't like about this GoTo system is that other than manually moving the telescope, It's a pain to try to slew the scope with the motors without it being aligned.

If I have any WiFi issues outside the next thing I want to try is using AC power. But I'm hopeful that shutting the phone apps has helped. I learned that during alignment, you really have to get the 3 stars centered good in your eyepiece or it can't correctly triangulate to figure out where it is (or where the sky is) and the alignment fails. This is why they recommend using a final centering of the star using a higher power EP.

It may not apply to your mount, but from my experience and reading on-line it seems that quite few mounts have issues with 3-star alignments and 2-star is what generally recommended.

Another thing to check is that your mount has right location coordinates and time.

Thanks Bigzmey. I've seen those Complaints too about the 3 star alignment. My Cell phone is giving the correct time/date and GPS coordinates.

So while I wait for clear skies here is a little rookie humor for you fine Telescopians who have helped me so much. A little background first:
Things like receiving the seriously damaged telescope is fairly standard for me. I have the kind of luck like what will go wrong, WILL GO WRONG. So my first night out with the Telescope experiencing that focus problem JayTee solved for me letting me know just how far the focus on this 9.25 can travel. I was out for a few hours and I can't focus a thing. I can't get a clear focus of the moon, the stars, and I'm getting frustrated.

So I truck the whole package back in the house read the board and I pretty much knew JayTee had pegged what I was doing wrong as soon as I read his post.

So I truck the whole package out again, set it up, thinking I got it now. Perfect focus here we come.
I align on a star in the finderscope, go to center the star in the Telescope and it's not there. Look in finderscope and there is the star, look in Telescope and it's not there. Look in finderscope see Star, look in Telecope no star! I look in finderscope and center the star AGAIN, Look in the Telescope and nothing, and I mean nothing. It was pitch black. More black than the sky, and I thinking what the heck is wrong now. What could be blocking the eyepiece. So I'm thinking as I circle the Telescope and then I see.......the Corrector cover is still on! R O O K I E !

I was reading the Community posts for SkySafari 7 Pro and several complaints were made about the Telescope controls sticking making the telescope keep running in the last direction button you pushed. I experienced this problem 2 times using SkyPortal and I believe this may be the cause of what I thought was a problem with my WiFi. I wouldn't be surprised if it is the same bug in SkySafari 7 Pro because SkyPortal is really a smaller component of Skysafari.

The SkySafari Support Manager responded to the complaints saying they are aware of the problem and it will be updated in a future update. Has anyone else using SkyPortal or SkySafari encountered this problem?