Absolute beginner needs help and some comfort !

[faulksy]

road sign accuracy should be fine as long as it wasnt to close.as valley man said use a smaller focal length e.p. (smallest no) this will improve your accuracy. then hopefully tonight, when you do your 3 star alignment search for your first brighest star with your finder then centralise your scope again on the star, if you de focus slightly this will make the star appear bigger which should fill your view in your chosen e.p., then move to your next alignemt star you shouldnt need to alter your finder at this stage providing you did the first stage correct, then finish on your 3rd star and press enter it should say match confirmed. i would reccomend before you do all this switch your scope on for around 30 mins before use so that your gps can find your location. good luck

[Noel Greene]

Dear all, I had a go at looking at Vega but it was very difficult because it was straight up.. I then looked at Altair which is the star at the bottom right of the summer triangle. Looking through the finder I had it dead centre in the cross hairs but it was nowhere to be seen in the scope itself. I was determined to see it in the scope so I moved the scope to get the star in view. I experienced the polo mint factor and fine tuning of focus got me right on the star. But it moves so quickly that is was gone by the time my wife came to view. I used a 17mm EP .. I thought I would get much more detail but no... I just saw a very bright star. At least this is more progress than last night when I was seeing just a grey mass. I was disappointed that I don't seem to have gotten the finder/scope alignment right. When I found the star Altair in the finder I expected to see it at least within the view of the scope..

[Davey-T]

Once you find Altair if the scope is properly aligned it should track and keep it in view.

Better to use the 40mm eyepiece as stars look much the same in any eyepiece and your more likely to find your star with a wider field of view.

Once you can centre a star roughly in 40mm eyepiece adjust finder to centre it.

When I first got 10" SCT it was a nightmare getting the hang of it, the instructions can be more hinderence than help and I didn't have this forum to help.

Good luck.

Dave

[JamesF]

If you get the star in the middle of the field of view and it then moves away it sounds like the mount isn't tracking at all, or isn't tracking accurately. Once you have everything properly aligned you should be able to find an object and the telescope will then track it as it appears to move across the sky without it moving in the eyepiece.

James

[faulksy]

have you got the ctr clutch locked it should track fine

[Noel Greene]

I have a few questions which I hope you very experienced members might answer. 1. there was a comment about Expectation Management and I think I have come down to earth a little bit over the past few days. Last night I looked at Altair but I think I expected to see a lot more than I actually saw. Using the 17mm EP I saw a very bright object .. with very little definition .. is that standard for looking at stars. You can see by this question that my knowledge is extremely limited. If I can only see a very bright object can some expert explain to me why this is the case. Is it because these stars are so far away. 2nd Question. While looking at Altair it moved out of the scope view very quickly. One commentator mentioned that the telescope should be automatically Tracking .. Is it true that it wont automatically Track any object until I get the Alignment set up. I am going to take more advice from this forum and wait for about another 10 days until the Moon can be used as an Alignment object. In the meantime I have ordered Turn Left at Orion ..Thanks again for all your time and patience

[faulksy]

hi again. for a start a star is a sun so there will be no detail, only a point of light.also the scope needs to be aligned to track so it knows what its tracking. i.e. a planet will move faster than a dso. (deep space object). try the tour function see how you get on

[Davey-T]

Moons a good thing to use for getting your finder lined up as even if it's not in view in your main scope and out of focus you can usually see its light from outside of the field of view.

Dave

[Noel Greene]

I am coming back to the issue I posed after 10 days of experimenting .. If anyone reads this I would appreciate some extra answers. I have been able to "sort of" align the Telescope using the Moon as my alignment object. Even though I thought I had aligned the scope quite well it was clear that there was some deviation .. when I saw the Moon in the Finderscope it was not in view in the Scope itslef .. slightly to the left. In any event I lined up the Moon in the sentre of the Scope and pressed the Align button on the handset. It was a bit hit and miss but eventually it seemed to work, Using a 17mm EP I was able to see some great views of the quarter moon .. It was a thrill to see this .. Last night I looked again but again I had to Align the Scope with the Moon .. the handset said that Alignment was required .. which I didnt think was or should be the case .. but in any event it worked again .. and the Tracking also worked which was just great. Question .. do I have to align the Scope every time I use it .. secondly the Moon was so bright last night that there were flares in my eye .. that took a few minutes to go away .. Is it dangerous to look at the Moon when it is so bright .. I have some filters in a set which maybe I should use .. thanks for reading and for all your help earlier this month

[brucen]

Can't help with the handset issues but if the moon was visible in the finder scope but not through the main scope then you do need to adjust them. If you use the moon, when it is in the centre of the main scope you need to adjust the screws on the finder scope so that it is visible through that as well. I would suggest you do this with a smaller object though - any bright star will do - as this will be more accurate.

[MorningMajor]

Question .. do I have to align the Scope every time I use it .. secondly the Moon was so bright last night that there were flares in my eye .. that took a few minutes to go away .. Is it dangerous to look at the Moon when it is so bright

If you move the scope ie take it inside at the end of the night, then yes, you will have to re align it again the following night. I think your scope has a "park" mode which will remember the settings when you power it down, but of course, this means you must leave the scope in exactly the same place and not move it during the day - totally impractical with UK weather etc - but in Cyprus??

As for the moon, it is very bright - especially in comparison to the stars etc, but your eyes should adjust, but there is no possibility of damaging your eyesight by observing the moon - variable polarising filters are available which will really help. The Sun however is a totally different matter - NEVER look at it through the scope without an appropriate filter - but that's another subject for another day!

Good luck

[valleyman]

If you switch the power off and move the scope then you have to do a complete realign again. the handset remembers your location but date and time has to be re entered along with DST etc etc.

[brantuk]

Re-aligning the scope at the start of any session is standard practise and only needs to take a few mins. But it's important to get yourself into a routine. First - during daylight - align the finder with the scope. Do this first using the 40mm eyepiece. If the object is dead center of both eyepiece and finder cross hairs then its aligned. But not really!

If you then pop the 17mm in and look again it will be way off center in the eyepiece. Why? well that's the difference in magnification between 40mm and 17mm. The 17mm is higher mag - and also higher accuracy - the lower you go in eyepiece size (less mm) the more accurate it becomes. So realign the finder on your daytime object using the 17mm eyepiece.

The scope has a focal length of 2350mm. Calculate magnification by dividing scope focal length with eyepiece size - all in mm. For your scope 2350/17 = 138x magnification. I would recommend you also get a 10mm or 12mm eyepiece at some stage to get higher mags and better accuracy still. You'll get around 200x magnification which is a good practical limit.

Now when you get it out at night - repeat this with your alignment stars. Start with 40mm then redo with 17mm before you press the "Align" key. You'll soon get the hang of it. At the moment though - 17mm is still a bit "low power" for best accuracy. A 10/12mm would work very effectively for most objects.

By far your biggest problem right now is aligning the goto - and this depends greatly on your knowledge of the sky. Download Stellarium (free planetarium software) - configure it for your location - and learn how to identify the brighter stars. Pick 3 that can be seen when you step out at night. It makes a big difference when you press the align button that you know exactly what you're pointing at. The summer triangle is good to use, so too any of the brighter constellation stars. When you are confident knowing you are aligning on "known" stars the tracking and accuracy will magically be spot on. If it isn't - then you'll know the time/site info or tracking rate or other item is wrong.

It's worth persevering - the 925 is a beautiful scope with stunning performance - you really have done yourselves proud choosing it but it's a beast for a total beginner lol. It was my third scope after 18mths with two others so I knew quite a bit by then. But you will get there eventually and you'll come to realise you have one of the best scopes around in that market position

[brantuk]

Oh - the moon is very bright when it's full - yes it will make your eye ache a bit but it's not dangerous. The moon is best viewed at half moon or less and the most interesting parts are along the limb and the terminator. A thin crescent is a joy to look at. Unfortunately when the moon's full - it washes out all the galaxies which become much fainter or totally invisible. Btw - never look at the sun with the scope or you'll fry your eye instantly and the damage will be irreversible.

In the future you may want to consider binoviewers - this will give you a very exciting whole new dimension of observing with the Sct - but that's for much later right now

[Scott]

Hi Noel,

Sorry to hear your having problems working out the various aspects of your scope. I'm not sure if you have done this but doing a search on you tube can quite often find some very helpful videos there. One site on youtube is astronomyshed. dion has many videos on all aspects of setting up telescopes. perhaps if you typed in "3 star alinement for (your scope)" you might get some helpful information.When looking at stars they'll always look like stars but don't worry, there's plenty to look at up there. wait til you see saturn and jupiter, they'll take your breath away. there's also clusters, nebulae and galaxies to keep you busy for many years to come. hope this helps. I know its hard but try to enjoy, it'll get better, i promise

Scott