New member here, PST woes.
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:28 am
Hi, all.
I'm a newbie here, although with regards to astronomy I'd have to say I've been around a bit. Always willing to learn new tricks and I'm just now learning the ropes of hydrogen alpha solar telescope imaging and observing. Let's say I'm pretty hooked now!
Just recently, I acquired a Meade/Coronado PST from an individual an hour away. It was a local Craigslist find and the original owner had only used it twice. Once was during the eclipse last August, and the other was a couple weeks afterward. From there, it sat in a closet, until I picked it up two weeks ago. It was purchased weeks before the eclipse, and fundamentally is a brand new scope.
First glimpse through it was full of nice, contrasty views. A few days ago, however, it suffered an accident. I had it out on a tripod observing and doing a bit of DSLR imaging with it, and got the 'call of nature' so I rushed back inside for a few seconds. While inside, one of the tripod leg lock levers suffered a fatigue-induced failure which brought the PST itself to the ground. The impact tore the internal etalon out of the threaded mounting on the pentaprism body, and misaligned the pentaprism itself.
The etalon is fine, and was not 'decontacted' or thrown out of alignment as there is no ghosting of solar images present. In fact, the threads were relatively unscathed in the impact and the etalon threads into the PST body without issue. However, there was a noticeable loss in contrast (which I suspect is due to the pentaprism being misaligned), following the impact. Areas of plage and solar filaments aren't as contrasty as they were when I had my first glimpse.
When I tried removing the top cover to access the pentaprism, three of the six hex-head screws that hold the cover in place, had stripped out. Incidentally, it was while using a set of brand new Allen-head wrenches that I bought specifically for the PST. I have tried everything to remove those three screws to access the prism to no avail, including the rubber band method, using extractor bits which made it worse.
What say ye, to helping me fix this? And what suggestions might prevail, to give me the contrast I had?
I'm a newbie here, although with regards to astronomy I'd have to say I've been around a bit. Always willing to learn new tricks and I'm just now learning the ropes of hydrogen alpha solar telescope imaging and observing. Let's say I'm pretty hooked now!
Just recently, I acquired a Meade/Coronado PST from an individual an hour away. It was a local Craigslist find and the original owner had only used it twice. Once was during the eclipse last August, and the other was a couple weeks afterward. From there, it sat in a closet, until I picked it up two weeks ago. It was purchased weeks before the eclipse, and fundamentally is a brand new scope.
First glimpse through it was full of nice, contrasty views. A few days ago, however, it suffered an accident. I had it out on a tripod observing and doing a bit of DSLR imaging with it, and got the 'call of nature' so I rushed back inside for a few seconds. While inside, one of the tripod leg lock levers suffered a fatigue-induced failure which brought the PST itself to the ground. The impact tore the internal etalon out of the threaded mounting on the pentaprism body, and misaligned the pentaprism itself.
The etalon is fine, and was not 'decontacted' or thrown out of alignment as there is no ghosting of solar images present. In fact, the threads were relatively unscathed in the impact and the etalon threads into the PST body without issue. However, there was a noticeable loss in contrast (which I suspect is due to the pentaprism being misaligned), following the impact. Areas of plage and solar filaments aren't as contrasty as they were when I had my first glimpse.
When I tried removing the top cover to access the pentaprism, three of the six hex-head screws that hold the cover in place, had stripped out. Incidentally, it was while using a set of brand new Allen-head wrenches that I bought specifically for the PST. I have tried everything to remove those three screws to access the prism to no avail, including the rubber band method, using extractor bits which made it worse.
What say ye, to helping me fix this? And what suggestions might prevail, to give me the contrast I had?
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