I finally got a good look at Mars tonight! Whoohoo! I've only ever looked at two things through my new telescope -- Mars and the moon. I've had some great looks at the Moon but Mars has always been very bright and vapory and hard to see any detail whatsoever.
I've learned a few things that helped me:
- Keep thy eyepieces in a warm room before use. Previously, I left them in the cold observatory and as soon as I would pick one up to put on the telescope it would fog.
- Run the fans on the telescope for about an hour to cool it down. The longer the fans ran, the more clear Mars became!
Yesterday I hooked the RCOS TCC up to my computer and I was able to control temperature and monitor it as well as focus. That was helpful. I've plotted about 8 objects in TPOINT so the telescope will now get whatever object I want visibile within the eyepiece. I need to plot about 30 more objects for the accuracy to really improve. I'm getting there!
Dave