Used to just eyeball my telescope alignment... now I actually check the viewfinder first

I spent like a year just pointing my dob at stars and hoping for the best... wasted so many clear nights. Then about 6 months ago I read a post here about making sure the viewfinder and main scope are dead-on aligned during the day. Now I do it every time before dark and it takes maybe 5 minutes. Anyone else have a habit they ignored for way too long that changed their whole stargazing game?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew90623d ago

Wait, you mean you're supposed to check alignment before it gets dark? I spent a whole summer bumping my finder scope into doors and car trunks, then wondering why I couldn't find anything in the sky. One time I spent an hour trying to track down what I thought was a nebula, turns out it was just a smudge on my eyepiece from my greasy thumb. Now I do the whole daytime alignment ritual with a distant antenna or a treetop, feels like I'm actually preparing for something instead of just winging it. Still forget to clean my lenses half the time though, some habits are harder to break.

taylor.paige23d ago

Greasy thumbprints are a rite of passage though.