Telescope repair advice

dr strangelove

Hi all,
I dug out my old SkyWatcher telescope to have a look at the planets last night.
There's no model number on it, but it looks a lot like this:


It's been kicking around in the spare room for a few years and although there doesn't seem to be any damage to it, when i try to view a planet, the image is a not very sharp when using the 4mm eye piece, and the colour is shifted to the blue on one edge of the planetary disc, and shifted to the red on the other edge

So the questions are:
a) is the mirror damaged or out of alignment ?
b) can i get it fixed?
c) who can you recommend in Dublin?
d) should i expect anything better fro this type of scope?
e) is that what planets normally look like? :P

ta,

Popoutman

If the planet you were looking at was very low in the sky, that could be the cause of the dispersion that you are seeing. As the telescope is a newtonian
design, there is no way to get colour artifacts from the scope itself.

If the 4mm eyepiece is a poor quality eyepiece then it may cause the fringing that you were seeing, but that's not that likely even with the cheap SW eyepieces.

Was the view through the other eyepieces any different? If you were seeing the same colour fringing through the other eyepieces then the cause is likely to be the planet at a low altitude and causing dispersion where the red fringe is on the bottom of planet and the blue fringe being vertically on the top edge of the planet.

Also if the atmospheric seeing was poor, then the 4mm eyepiece may be too high a magnification to be useful for the conditions, giving you a more magnified blur.

dbran

Hi

Your scope is a newtonian. If there is flaring off of the side then it probably needs to be collumated if you havent used it for a while.

Google colimation and there is umpteen tutorials about how to do it.

It could also be bad quality eyepiece as above or if the eyepiece has been lying around the elements inside could have loosened and be causing the colours.

Hope this helps.


dbran

dr strangelove

Hi, thanks for the replies - i can't remember for definite, but i'm sure the colouring was the same with several eyepieces, but i'll check again when there's a clear night.
I've ordered the collimator and a new eyepiece, so we'll see how that goes.
Thanks