First telescope

[ollieholt]

Hi all, finally got a telescope! It's a 114x900 mm reflector on an EQ mount, not sure which mount it is though. It cane with three eps, slow mo controls and a wooden tripod in need of a tiny bit of attention. Managed 30-40 mins with it tonight before the clouds rolled in, great views of the sky in general, I'm still staggered at the amount of stars that are hidden from the naked eye. I have been trying to tackle this mount, this EQ mount Will take some getting used to! Any tips for using an EQ mount?

I spent a an hour or so with it inside tightening up some loose nuts and bolts on the mount and tripod it's all moving nicely now. I will need to buy a collimation tool as soon as possible. It was way out through the eye piece I have adjusted it as near as I could without an collimating eye piece.

So any tips for me as a beginner? I got it off a local chap for 50 of the queens. The primary is in fantastic condition as is the secondary and the whole OTA

[Ags]

Congrats on the telescope. For suggests about what to see, try Tonight's Sky.

Do you know how to do a star test? Point the telescope at a bright star on a night when the air is stable, and look at the diffraction rings around the star - they should be centered on the star. This will tell you how good your collimation is...

[Stargazer Jack]

Sounds like a SkyWatcher SkyHawk 1145PM to me which is on an EQ1 mount. I would give you some links to help you but am on my iPod so bit hard. Sorry but good luck

[ollieholt]

Oh sorry it's a tasco scope, no idea how old it is, I'm aware the by no means high tech but it seems to be a nice little scope! I think you are right with the EQ1, it looks like those on the web. Thanks for the link I will check that out! In my back yard I am limited to certain views. I managed to ge vega in view after some time! Very bright small round dot in my 20mm eyepiece. I will have to try the collimation test next time I manage to get some sky. Thanks for the tip.

It also came with a rather long ep looking thing, it fits into the scope and eps fit into it, possibly a Barlow?

[onesmallstep]

Hi

This link should help:

FAQ's & How-To's - How to Polar Align Your Equatorial Mount - Model Number: PolarAlign

[ollieholt]

Thanks for the link on polar alignment I found it very useful! I will definitely use that!