NGC7023 Iris

Everything comes gradually. At first, you get something blurry that looks like a galaxy, and you’re as happy as a child. Then it seems sharp, and you’re jumping for joy again... Now I see the flaws and just adjust. What I’m getting at is: April was a month when the sky was clear almost every day. You shoot and don’t notice that the telescope is misaligned. Then in May, I figured it all out and tuned it—twisted the focuser, adjusted the mirror. The stars became about 20% sharper: they went from 2.9–3 to 2.4–2.6. I noticed that the tube is, let’s say, pretty flimsy—when you insert the laser into the focuser and wiggle the focuser, the dot jumps all over the place. So basically, I need to reinforce the focuser assembly. I have a month; I’ll get it done. As for a field flattener, I’m not thinking about installing one yet.

The tubes on the SW are a bit flimsy. I reinforced the area around the focuser with fiberglass composite. I also modified the focuser itself. It helped a lot.