Testing second hand scopes

Here is the place to talk about all those equipment(Telescope, Mounts, Eyepieces, etc...) you have. Not sure which scope/eyepiece is best for you? Trash it out here!
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akdwivedi
Posts: 141
Joined: Sat May 06, 2017 1:01 am
Favourite scope: celestron C6

Re: Testing second hand scopes

Post by akdwivedi »

I sold one nexstar 6/8 se mount and the gentleman came home, we set the mount, he brought his mak scope. We did the usual alignement process, tested goto and tracking.. When he was satisfied he took the mount. I guess if I was buying, I will check if the gears are not making wierd sound while taking a full 360 turns on both axis with different speeds. I will check if the hand controller is fully functional or check the app connectivity if mount supports WiFi. Testing a couple of gotos will be good though I won't be very worried about precision of goto (that depends on too many variables)

Scope side is difficult. I normally just check if the glass doesn't has fungus and I can focus on a terrestrial target. A rough check on collimation though I don't expect collimation to be perfect. What may seem to be perfectly collimated to me may not be the same with other. Maybe some check on light leak - cover the scope with a dark cloth and see through the scope to see if the body doesn't has any missing shins, screws and leaking light.

Actually haven't bought many scopes so can't tell what worked for me and what doesn't. I did buy photographic lenses and there a check on fungus, dust, scratches on optical elements, focusing, function of image stabilisation switches etc were quick to check.
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