IC434 and NGC 2024 / The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae

Thanks! Regarding the diffraction spikes: I spent the whole evening working on them today. As I understand it, the new spider CYCK turned out to be glossy, which caused it to reflect a lot of stray light (so I was told), so I painted it with matte black paint along with the back of the secondary mirror. But to do that, I had to remove it, which means the collimation was thrown off, and I just recently learned about CollimationCircles. I took a planetary camera, attached a 1.25" fisheye lens to it, plugged it into the focuser, and got to work. I discovered that the secondary mirror doesn't go deep enough into the tube, causing the image of the primary mirror to be cropped by its edge, and on the other side, a piece of the tube is visible. I had suspected this before but couldn't prove it, and now it's more serious. I'll deal with this tomorrow :) "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Yes, collimation is quite an engaging activity :) Good luck and patience to you! On my own 200PDS, I also replaced the spider with a solid one and installed a primary mirror mask.

So I've already replaced the spider and installed the mask. Now I just need to sort this out.

Yeah, really, that's funny.