EQ2 mount

[fredbloggsXIII]

Hi. I am now the proud owner of a Skywatcher 130P telescope. I've set it up and got a nice clear night last night and managed to see the moon (obviously) and also the star/planet to the left of it with 3 other stars/moons next to it. (I am obviously a newbie, I think it could be Mercury or Venus??)

Anyway, when I turn the mount, it will only go so far and then the bolt holding it in place starts to come undone. Have I not set the mount up correctly or should there only be a certain distance the mount can turn? I can spin it manually but then it seems to become a little spring loaded and turns back on itself.

I hope this makes sense, forgive me, I am a complete beginner!!

[Peter Drew]

Hello Fred.

You're still at the exciting stage where everything is still to be discovered. What you saw next to the Moon was Jupiter with three of its moons. As far as your mount is concerned, I tjink the up and down motion has a limited amount of spring loaded control. You need to undo a thumbscrew , move the scope to where you want to be, lock the thumbscrew again and then operate the control rod.

[fredbloggsXIII]

Thanks for the reply. It was the left and right direction where it was 'sticking'. It was quite exciting It's amazing how many stars are invisible to the naked eye! I need to get swotting up on my planets and their positions now.

[Bizibilder]

Download "Stellarium" (freeware) - and have hours of fun learning the sky!

[fredbloggsXIII]

I will take a look, thanks.

[fredbloggsXIII]

A bit off topic but why can't I see anything through the eye piece in daylight?

[John]

A bit off topic but why can't I see anything through the eye piece in daylight?

What are you looking at (not the Sun of course !!!) ?

The view would be upside down as all newtonian scopes show it. You won't be able to focus on things that are closer than around 100 feet as the scope is designed for astro objects.

[fredbloggsXIII]

No, not the Sun, just the sky. It seems dark and all I see is a small image of the mirror at the back. Not a lot to see during the day anyway.

[Cornelius Varley]

Hi. I am now the proud owner of a Skywatcher 130P telescope. I've set it up and got a nice clear night last night and managed to see the moon (obviously) and also the star/planet to the left of it with 3 other stars/moons next to it. (I am obviously a newbie, I think it could be Mercury or Venus??)

Anyway, when I turn the mount, it will only go so far and then the bolt holding it in place starts to come undone. Have I not set the mount up correctly or should there only be a certain distance the mount can turn? I can spin it manually but then it seems to become a little spring loaded and turns back on itself.

I hope this makes sense, forgive me, I am a complete beginner!!

The declination axis slo-mo control (left/right) is designed to have only a small degree of adjustment. To make larger adjustments to the dec axis you need to release the dec axis thumbscrew and manually slew the telescope to the new direction and then retighten the thumbscrew.

[fredbloggsXIII]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Just trying to get my head around the stallarium program now. Looks like it might be cloudy tonight though

[John]

No, not the Sun, just the sky. It seems dark and all I see is a small image of the mirror at the back. Not a lot to see during the day anyway.

Unless there is a specific object to focus on, like a bird, plane, treetop etc the sky will just look like a light circular patch of light with the black circular shadow of the scopes secondary mirror against it.

[fredbloggsXIII]

Unless there is a specific object to focus on, like a bird, plane, treetop etc the sky will just look like a light circular patch of light with the black circular shadow of the scopes secondary mirror against it.

Yes, thats exactly what I am seeing. I could just about make out the top of a tree in the image.

When i'm looking at the Stellarium program, do I use the numbers shown on there to set the dials on the mount? I am guessing this is how its done once I've pointed it at Polaris? I've read through the manual a few times now and things are becoming a bit clearer.

[Jim-a]

The setting circles on your mount wont be accurate enough to 'dial in' a setting (not sure why they put them on there in the first place) from stellarium. Best way to find things will be to learn to star-hop using your finder scope - don't worry about it too much, you'll get used to it soon enough.

[Bizibilder]

Yes - learn to find a few bright stars forst and get the hang of using the scope - this won't take long. Then start to try and find some fainter / trickier objects. Don't expect to see full-colour nebulae though! Scope and your eyes will only see "faint-fuzzies" with the emphasis on faint! Jupiter and the moon are well placed at the moment and as your eye become accustomed to using the scope you will start to pick up more detail as you observe.

[fredbloggsXIII]

Hi. I had a bit of restless night and the Sky was relatively clear so had a play about. Using the thumb screws is much easier than using the fine tuning dials! I also took a closer look at the left/right control and can see that it is only limited to around 40 degrees of movement due to the way it works. I have managed to get the red dot finder almost accurate aswell and was able to quite easily swing the scope around and locate the brighter looking objects with Jupiter and its moons as my current favourite. Thanks for the advice, I am feeling I little more than a complete newbie now

[knobby]

Stick at it... We're all newbies!

spend some more time on Jupiter , the longer you look the more detail pops out.

if you're up early next 'restless night ' (also known as scope fever ) Saturn is visible in the south sky at about 5.30

Good luck!