Was hoping to capture some far away light using the AT66ED setup, but the clouds moved in pretty quick after dark. The forecast earlier in the day looked OK, but it worsened as the day went on. It was pretty clear through most of the afternoon, once the Sun set clouds started moving in. At astronomical dark only a few bright stars could be seen peaking through the clouds. I did get a few minutes with enough clear sky to mess around with the focus using the new EAF on the Astro-Tech 66ED.

I was unable to get focus in the primary scope using the UA 1x Field Flattener 🙁 I did not have enough inward focus. I need to shorten the distance between the flattener and the focus tube on the scope. There is a 2″ nose piece on the UA Flattener that looks like it should screw off, but I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to do so.

I’ll see if I can come up with another option to get a field flattener in the image train. Might try the flattener/reducer I have to the 102 to see if I can get that in focus. Anyway I have some tinkering to do.

After removing the field flattener I was able to get the scope into decent focus at around 18000 steps. I ran the auto focus routine but the clouds were really screwing with things, so I’ll have to try that again on a clear night.

I was also able to get the OSSAG focused in the SVBONY SV165 30mm guide scope. So next session I should not have to futz with that too much.

Hopefully we will have a clear night in the next few days so I can do some more tinkering and maybe actually capture some light through this setup.

Clear skies…