Just bought MEADE DS2130ats-LN

[lesbelcher]

Totally new to astronomy, I got one of these in the post.

Can anyone advise me on this telescope?

Think its an oldish scope but the seller insists he bought it new, last year.

Any help , I would be grateful.

Les..

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[ronin]

Doesn't seem to be that old, Harrison telescopes sell it for £377. 5 inch reflector and f/7.7. Would hope it is parabolic but cannot see anything stating this.

Autostar is the basic one, 494 or similar number I think. If you need it I suspect that the meade.com site under support will have a manual.

Not familiar with the single arm scopes by Meade, but I will assume they operate the same, for alignment purposes.

Supply your location as a name then Lat and Long. Then the timezone think it is 0 or 00, and tell it that the mount is Alt/Az.

For the alignment: Level the mount, then aim the scope with the long eyepiece in at Polaris and centre Polaris, then drive the scope tube down until that is level.

You will have to supply the date and time, and then DST (On at present), DST = BST.Then tell it to align.

If you have a reasonably clear view the scope will wander off to 2 alignment stars, you centre each in turn and press Enter.

As long as you can see Polaris there isn't any real problems. If you use a compass then magnetic north is somewhat different to true north so do not expect it to go smoothly. Also get the mount and tube as level as you reasonably can. The more level and pointing North they are the less errors that the scope has to compensate for.

If the mount has a circular power connector I suggest a mains adaptor from Maplins.

Read the manual and get used to the handset, they are not intuitive.

The scope may need releasing and initially pointed Northwards by hand then the mount tightened up before you start. I have 2 meades and one does and one doesn't. If there is a big N on one of the tripod legs then I half suspect that it does. Simple to do, just tighten it again afterwards.

Do not over tighten the Declination Lock Knob, it needs to be firm no more. If too tight some gears will strip.

[lesbelcher]

Thanks for that. I have a south facing house and Polaris is directly over my back fence.

It's been really hard trying to decide which scope to go for. First it was a

Skywatcher 130 then a Meade etx60 then the heritage so I cut a deal on eBay and got the DS-2130, used a handful of times for £200.

I suppose the more I use the scope the easier the setup.

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