First night with scope - help

[DonRemus]

Just picked up a 2nd hand scope and saw a few gaps in the clouds so thought I'd have a go..

My word the EQ mount is a handful, was better once I found the clutches but still no clue really. May have to watch some instruction vids as ended up moving the tripod legs. Found Jupiter in finder but couldn't get it centred so gave up there in the end. Then tried M42 but same issue. Saw the moon come up so thought I'd try that, must be easier!

Managed to get the moon in left of 25mm eyepiece. Fiddled with the fine adjustor wotsits and 1/4 turn, moon obliged into centre. Lovely! Looked nice in 25mm so added the 2x barlow. Got a better view but not sure if I'm viewing eyepiece correctly as image was swimming around like in a bubble. Tried the 10mm and got some nice crater views when I could steady the image in the eyepiece.

With both clutches off the scope has a great freedom of movement but not always in the direction I needed to go....I am impressed with the ability of the EQ mount, amazing engineering I guess I just need some tips then practice more.

Eyepieces look a little dirty/greasy - how or should I clean them?

Quite pleased though, at least I saw something up there it's a start.

ps Best thing about astronomy is the dark, nobody saw me being an idiot newb

[rowan46]

this is as good as anything for cleaning http://www.firstlightoptics.com/misc/baader-optical-wonder-fluid.html

The swimming around is what's known as "seeing" it's caused by atmospheric turbulence and is more noticable the more you magnify.

[badgerchap]

An EQ for the first time definitely takes some getting used to.

The 'swirling around like it's in a buuble' sounds like a combination of wind and poor seeing to me. Particularly when you have hich mag, these things become increasingly loathesome.

[nephilim]

Practice, practice & more practice & when you 'think' you've got the hang of it, you'll need to practice a little more You'll get used to it & the benifits of an eq far outweigh the faffing around to begin with. We've all been there mate.

Steve

[Pig]

Hiya,

Its best to set your finder scope up during the day. Use a distant object like a TV Ariel, centre it in the centre of you view in your main scope and then adjust your finder scope so the object you can see is in the centre also.

You can then fine tune when looking at Jupiter, start with a 25X eyepiece and then a 12X.

Once its set you should be ok

Remember when you change between eyepieces objects will not always be centred perfectly as eyepieices will never sit exactly in the same place twice.

Sent from my GT-P7510

[Blazar]

Hiya...assume you polar aligned the EQ mount? if you do that then you should be able to follow objects around the sky a bit easier (or so I am told!) just got one myself....older model though...

[emadmoussa]

You'll get used to the EQ mount. I dare to say at some point you'll fall in love with it.

[DonRemus]

Hiya...assume you polar aligned the EQ mount? if you do that then you should be able to follow objects around the sky a bit easier (or so I am told!) just got one myself....older model though...

Forgot to polar align it (I had read that somewhere). I now see how it should work, as in once level by latitude with target moving the scope side to side will always follow the path of the object. Amazing stuff. Now to put it into practice.....oh no...cloudy

[Double Kick Drum]

Stick with the equatorial mount. To start with, you will think "why?" but when you line the mount up with Polaris, it enables you to track objects as the Earth spins on its axis.

Moving the scope gets easier with practice.

Clear skies!

[DonRemus]

Cloudy outside so had a play with the mount indoors (saddo!)

Red the instructions and I had the mount on wrong! There is a metal dowel on the tripod which I assumed went in a hole on the mount........, now realise it goes in between the azimuth knobs. No wonder it was on the pi%$ last night lol. Looking in the boxes I found a circular spirit level with a rubber backing that guess what - goes in the hole! It falls out when mount uprighted but I now know where it goes. Superglue in?

Right so the mount, counterweights and scope are all pointing in line with the big N on the tripod head. Started swinging the scope etc all sorts of ways and can now see how to look everywhere. Eureka!

Just found another lens in the mount - wow I have a polar finder! (the polar finder and spirit level are not mentioned in the very brief instructions)

Can't wait to try it again now. Probably did well to see anything last night it was so poorly set up.

Once again, so glad it was dark!

Thanks people

[upahill]

My second night with the mount was soooo much easier than my first, once properly aligned it was very easy to track an object with just a slight turn of one adjuster.

[nephilim]

Cloudy outside so had a play with the mount indoors (saddo!)

Red the instructions and I had the mount on wrong! There is a metal dowel on the tripod which I assumed went in a hole on the mount........, now realise it goes in between the azimuth knobs. No wonder it was on the pi%$ last night lol. Looking in the boxes I found a circular spirit level with a rubber backing that guess what - goes in the hole! It falls out when mount uprighted but I now know where it goes. Superglue in?

Right so the mount, counterweights and scope are all pointing in line with the big N on the tripod head. Started swinging the scope etc all sorts of ways and can now see how to look everywhere. Eureka!

Just found another lens in the mount - wow I have a polar finder! (the polar finder and spirit level are not mentioned in the very brief instructions)

Can't wait to try it again now. Probably did well to see anything last night it was so poorly set up.

Once again, so glad it was dark!

Thanks people

Next on your list mate should be aligning the polarscope it sometimes seems never ending haha, save this link & have a look when you get time http://galacticfool.com/polar-align-eq-mount/ the polarscope part is a little further down the page.

Steve

[DonRemus]

Second night with scope last night, had an hour or so. So much better when mount set up correctly. Good view of Jupiter (saw two bands) with barlow and 10mm ep but does that sucker move fast or what at that mag? Was really not expecting that. Four moons showed up nicely too.

Really need to set finderscope up as couldn't get M42 but had a really nice scan around the sky and came across some clusters by accident, job for this weekend.

The scope was outside for half an our before use but I am still getting the swimming view in the eyepiece. I may try it a little further from the house. Any recommendations for longer eye relief eyepieces?

[nameunknown]

Cambridgeshire is good for flatland and clear skies (and wet feet) - and you also have a lot of local astronomy clubs (I was at Uni there and had access to some excellent kit) - join a club and go along - you have some good kit and there will be plenty of people with similar stuff happy to tell a "newbie" how to use it. They can be a bit odd - when I was a "newbie" my astronomy "tutor" had picked up his stuff on the Somme in WW1 (between starshells) also taught me to play the banjo....

N

[nephilim]

Second night with scope last night, had an hour or so. So much better when mount set up correctly. Good view of Jupiter (saw two bands) with barlow and 10mm ep but does that sucker move fast or what at that mag? Was really not expecting that. Four moons showed up nicely too.

Really need to set finderscope up as couldn't get M42 but had a really nice scan around the sky and came across some clusters by accident, job for this weekend.

The scope was outside for half an our before use but I am still getting the swimming view in the eyepiece. I may try it a little further from the house. Any recommendations for longer eye relief eyepieces?

The 'swimming' your noticing in the ep is nothing to do with cooling the scope, its down to atmospheric disturbance (refered to as the 'seeing') theres nothing u can do about that, its even worse when its windy. Its not always like that tho but with the weather in this country its all to common i'm afraid.

Steve

[DonRemus]

Getting a little better now - 2 hours outside tonight. Less 'seeing' so really good. Managed to set finder scope up so that helped. Another good view of Jupiter. Bagged M42 this time, spent a good half hour on it through barlow and 10mm - it moves fast at that mag too. Saw the trapezium of stars in it and lovely hazy shapes. Took a look at Pleiades in 25mm ep and took my breath away such a beauty. Ended up taking both clutches off and just swinging the scope around Cassiopeia and the Milky Way using 25mm ep marvelling at sheer number of stars, doubles and clusters.

Liking this scope and mount a lot, what a bargain.

[gert0070_0]

I'm new to this too, only had my EQ mount about a week. I found that the info Astro Babe has on her web site is brilliant for muppets like me, spent the first couple of days in the kitchen just getting to know the way it works and using the idiot guide that she wrote.. got the hang of it and spent most of Wednesday night just looking at Jupiter... and got it first try.

check out www.astro-babe.com

[gert0070_0]

Sorry www.astro-baby.com