More Telescope Tomfoolery (Revised)

So I, Crumby am out in the east pasture with the new 10" Newtonian/Dobsonian lookin' around. It's collimated now, er was last night. I got some swell looks at Jupiter and Saturn at 139x. But what I really wanted to find was the M81 galaxy that is sort of analogous to Moby Dick these days, fer me. I looked here and I looked there and I looked pert near everywhere, but alas, no M81 could I espy. Unless it was a smudgy lookin' affair I keep runnin' across. But I don't think so. I had the smudge in a TV plossl at 60x and it still looked like a smudge.

Here's the 10" Newtonian/Dobsonian, the newest CB telescopery depicted off to the left, maybe. It's beautiful, cherry red. This is some of the telescopery I was out in the east pasture with, at the very location shown. The range wand is included fer scale. Fer those of ye who are ignorant of telescopery, I have labeled some parts to wise ye up. There's a straight through finder which ye must both bend over and turn yer head sideways to espy through ( a very dangereous and vulnerable position to put yerself in, as ye may know). There's the base fer a Rigel Quick Finder gizmo, but the Rigel aint attached. Whut Rigel does is project two concentric red circles on the sky and once ye get yer Rigel and the rest of the telescopery in cahoots, the rest of the telescopery will point to where the Rigel is projectin'. Ye must squat next to the telescopery to espy through the Rigel. Then there's the Cheshire which is what ye employ to line up the two mirrors situated inside that big red tube with yer eyepiece to within 2.8 mm of where they're sposed to line up. This be called collimation. Collimation is perilous, fer me, fer it involves twistin' screws. When excited by aggravation, I sometimes twist the heads of screws, even metal ones. Under the Cheshire is a nifty 2" to 1.25" adapter with three screws and a compression ring that Lomo had layin around. It's way longer than the adapter that came with the scope and that helps limit the wigglin' of the eyepieces, which go in the adapter, when one of them is inserted in the adapter. The Cheshire and adapter are in the focuser. So that's lots of different telescopery parts.

Anyhow, I'm out in the east pasture with all this neat stuff lookin' around at this and that when all of a sudden I notice how wet ever'thing is. A heavy dew has descended or arisen. But I am not deterred so I keep searchin' for M81. But I caint find it. And I'm switchin, back and forth from a 30mm 2" wide angle ep which I am using as a finder (in lieu of bending over and, turning sidewise and having one of yearlings mount up) to the little 20mm TV, to the even littler 9mm Ortho. But finally I give up on M81 fer I am distracted by the rising of Vega and I desire to espy its environs also. So then I switch back to the 30mm, but lo and behold, I had forgot to put a lid on it and the dew had gathered on it and froze. "Dad gum it. My ep finder has iced over," I exclaimed. And that, wound all that up.

This mornin' when I went out to check around, the Zexmenia hispidawas froze too. No wonder I got so cold.

But the point of all this is, that finder has got to be relegated to some other duty. Fer to espy, through it, only the Yogi-like may prevail. Plus, it don't want to come to focus at a fer piece, only close up. It sure is purty, though. Yet another example of, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
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The Revised Part

All righty then. That finder can be focused. What ye do is sight it in on a star and screw the objective out to loosen it up. Then behind the objective lens is a gnarly ring that also screws around. So ye just keep screwing the both of them in and out until the bright star comes into focus, sort of. I never did quite get that particular bright star as sharp as I wanted, for I plumb near screwed the objective out of its socket. But then I finally screwed it pretty close to where it needed to be so I could then espy fairly dim stars. Meantime though, I was bent over with my head turned sideways and I kept expectin' some feller to yell out, Now cough!

Finding a particular celestial body is not easy, fer me, due to spatial relationships which I have no intuitive sense of. Some say that having the celestial bodies appear upside down confuses them, but this don't bother me, cause I am already confused when they appear right side up. Because even right side up as they appear usually, is a spartial relationship.

So I need all the help I can get finding these particular celestial bodies and I don't need to be bent over with my head turned sideways when I'm trying to fine one, of em. I can stand the bent over aspect, mabye, but not the head turned side ways part.

Last night it was real clear so more stars were barely visible over the city lights than usual. So out I went to find M81 again. This time I had a little map that showed how to get from this star out aways from the Big Dipper er Great Bear er whatever to M81. And I could barely espy this star so that I could, aided by imagination, (I have a good intuitive sense of imagination), center it in Rigel the Quick Finder. This actually worked. Oh! But you may not know about Rigel. Rigel don't magnify so it aint much count if ye caint espy the object yerself. Rigel just projects little red circles at objects ye may wish to espy through the telescopery, and once Rigel has it's little circle on the object, ye can generally espy that object in the telescopery if ye have first rigged the telescopery and Rigel to be in general agrreement.

So I Rigeled the star imaginatively and then looked in the telescopery. Yepper, there it was. Now I pan east to find three little stars. Yepper, there they are. Then I pan east again to find three more little stars. Yepper. Then I pan a little ways further east and, no M81. But I did find the two groups of three little stars each and the finder helped a lot with that accomplishment. However, I didn't relish that accomplishment (the espying of the two groups of three little star) much because I was bent over with my head turned sideways.