Astrophotography: ZWO Guide Scope (30F4) and Camera (ASI120Mini) Focusing

I recently ordered the ASIAir Pro bundle with the ZWO ASI120 Mini Camera and the ZWO 30F4 Miniscope from OPT Corp. Here's a link to the bundle I selected:

Link to OPT Corp's page 

While I was waiting for some mounting hardware to arrive I thought I'd give the camera and scope and try.  ZWO has a suite of visualization tools for the PC on their website for download that includes planetary, DSO, and live stacking.

Now, being an impatient person, and the fact that my wife was working an evening shift, I decided to try out the scope in 15F weather because there were no clouds in the sky.  No clouds in the sky is exceedingly rare in the winter in a part of the state often socked in with LAKE EFFECT SNOW most of the time.

Setup was simple and I roughly pointed the camera at a very bright star (Sirius) in the sky.  During my research of the scope and camera, I read quite a bit about people complaining that the main focusing is done by sliding the camera in and out of the telescope body.  Thirty minutes of trying to focus on Sirius, realigning the scope's pointing, trying to focus again left me frustrated and very cold.  Now what?  Is the camera bad or am I missing something obvious?  Well, in my standard modus operandi, it was the latter.

Google to the rescue.  I did a quick search on "ZWO miniscope focusing issue" and came across a forum post where the user said the camera was barely inserted and the focus was still not good.  That got me thinking that I only looked at installation of the camera with it nearly fully inserted.  

This was my starting point for the
insertion of the tracking camera. 
Seems logical doesn't it?

The other hint that something was not right in my investigation was ZWO asking the user if he tried the extension piece included with the camera; I did not.  This got me thinking.

I pulled out the setup, in the comfort of my living room during the day, and I tried again.  Read this as "something you should do before venturing outside".  Here's a quick pic of the camera with the extension tube added.

Extension tube added to the front of the ZWO ASI120Mini

Pet peeve time:  Why is the screen printing chosen to be in that orientation?  I think left to right, the lens end of the scope comes first and to the left and then the imager is to the right.  So now most of my images will always have the text upside down.  Looks like I'll have to start thinking differently.  

I installed the extension tube, inserted the camera and extension piece about halfway into the scope.  Like this:

Reinstalled camera into the mini scope

Pointing the scope at a distant tree top. Firing up the software again and hitting the preview was immediately rewarded with a blurry and unrecognizable image. Actually, it was somewhat recognizable because as the wind blew the tops of the tree I saw some changes to the gray in the image but it seemed to be about the same as my first attempt at looking towards Sirius.  Trying to improve the focus was a fruitless task.  

This is an image of a tree about 200 meters away. 

This can't be the way, so out comes Google again.

When I received the miniscope, I tried to turn the anodized red lock ring thinking it was how to adjust focus.  But this thing was not going to turn so this must not be it.  Further reading says that it is, in fact, the locking ring for the focus.  The forward part of the scope is threaded and you turn this to focus., obviously.

With two hands I gave the anodized ring and the forward black section a twist and ... it's free! It's definitely screwed down all of the way to make the box needed for selling the product much smaller.  Whoever assembles this at the plant gave it a good hard twist when seating it.

The front section unscrewed from the locking ring

Now I had some fine focus.  Pointing at the tree again and I was able to get an awesome focus by pulling the camera out a bit and extending the front part of the scope.  So apparently in full light conditions, the scope and camera were working!

Now that's a tree! 
This should get me a start on focusing on a star or two.

Being an engineer, we strive to make things foolproof.  One issue that could be easily seen coming up is how far to insert the camera extension and make it repeatable.  A quick investigation of the front part of the miniscope shows that the threaded section is quite long.  I decided to make the camera insertion at a fixed point and then adjust the length of the scope to compensate.  I chose aligning the back edge of the miniscope with the seam between the camera's black and red sections of the body.  I figure this makes setting the position of the camera more repeatable.

Adjusting the position so that the black sections
are just inside the end of the scope.
Repeatability is the key here!

Final configuration before heading outside and trying it out.

This is more just for documentation on my part.  I found that from one end of the miniscope to the other, the set dimension is around 141mm.  It looks like the distance from the black ring on the camera to the sensor is about 4.5mm.  This will give me a start the next time I reset things but it is also a reminder that I need to look into a basic overview of optics.

Waiting a few hours for dark skies seemed to take forever.  This is where the astrophotography gods (is there a particular astrophotography god?) decided to curse me.  A step outside again confirmed my biggest fear...clouds.  It's been the same for a few days.  I'll be sure to post about using the guide scope in the dark soon.  I'll probably include it with a discussion of the ASIAIR PRO.  

Here's to clear skies in your future!

Note:  I am going to suggest the astrophotography god is Caelus.  In Roman myth he is the primal god of the sky and the heavens.  It's where we get the word celestial from.