Complete Newbie

[pr0xibus]

Evening guys and er girls lol.

Ever since i was a wee bairn always wanted to get into astronomy but other things got in the way, so today i took a plunge and bought

SkyWatcher Explorer 150PL EQ3-2 150mm Newtonian Reflector Telescope

from harrisontelescopes.com.

Although their are reviews online, these reviews just seem to be a general idea most saying its a good scope etc, What i would possibly like is someone that has used or that has this scope to tell me what it is like.

Never used a telescope before apart from my brothers very cheap one from argos many moons ago, im curious if i had my scope pointed at say saturn or jupiter, how big would would this display in the eye piece, someone said on this forum that it would be the size of a pea at arms length, is this correct. This scope is apparently good at looking at nebulas etc how big would they display at too?

Now im not one for reading much, if i read it doesnt stay in my head that much im more of a hands on person, i read somewhere that i have to allign the telescope and the small scope on the side, is this hard too do, im currently searching the internet but it all seems complicated. im kind of just looking for a nice easy tutorial from someone

Cheers in advance guys

NH

[pvaz]

This may help you with the eq mount:

Astronomy Boy: Animated Equatorial Mount Tutorial

You should also learn how to collimate (=align the mirrors of) the scope. Here's a tutorial:

Astro Babys Guide to Collimation

As to the planets that's about right, but you can actually notice detail even with it's small size. 240x is the max mag you can use on most nights and your scope is theoretically limited to 300x. Nebula and galaxies are affected by light pollution and moon light, they are very dim but many are huge. Orion nebula is bigger then the moon so on those you need low magnification and the largest scope (in aperture = light gathering ability) you can get. Your's will allow you to see most of the Messier 110 objects, all if you have really dark skies. As you increase magnification the image dims more, so for faint DSOs you want low power, if you increase it too much they become too dim and barely visible.

Feel free to ask questions, if you're anything like me you'll have plenty.

[Cornelius Varley]

Hi there. Pop over to this site FOV Calculator and enter your telescope detaiils (the Skywatcher 150 is listed there). Select your eyepiece and then choose an object for the menus. The object will then appear at the approxiamate size as it would in the eyepiece. Note the images of the deep sky objects will not look the same in your eyepiece. Most are dim and fuzzy in comparision to the photographs (they are normaaly refered to feint fuzzies for this reason).

Aligning the finderscope is easy. Line the telescope up on an aerial or tall building in the distance then, looking through the finderscope, adjust the three small screws on the finderscope bracket until the aerial / building is aligned.

Peter

[pr0xibus]

Well guys thanks for the rally quick replies.

i will check out that calculator in a minute.

Another quick question the scope and mount im getting is it possible to adda motor too it and allow it to track objects?

[Cornelius Varley]

Well guys thanks for the rally quick replies.

i will check out that calculator in a minute.

Another quick question the scope and mount im getting is it possible to adda motor too it and allow it to track objects?

Definitely yes. There are three options. Option 1 is a single axis motor that controls the RA axis of the mount, so allowing the telescope to track across the the sky, the DEC axis is controlled by the manual slo-motion control that comes with the mount. Option 2 gives motor control to both RA and DEC axis, this allows you to fine tune both axis when observing. In both cases the mount needs to be slewed manully over larger distances because the maximum slew rate is 8x siderial. The last option gives full goto capability to the mount and also allows the mount to be connected to a computer and controlled by a planetarium program such as Stellarium. The upgrade also gives the mount an autoguider port for long exposure astrophotography.

Peter

[Mr Dobby]

Proxbius

A newbie myself to all of this so I wont offer advice when other forum members of SGL are so better qualified and knowlegeable than me, but I can at least say hi and welcome to SGL, and I am sure all of your questions will be answered here.

Phil

[earth titan]

Hi there.

I have just taken delivery of one of these. First for me too.

I'm afraid reading is almost obligatory - as you will need to work out how things work, how to polar align etc. but it doesn't make sense until you get your hands on it.

I just bought a collimator for it, which I think is vital now I've checked it through. It was way out when I got it.

[pr0xibus]

cheers for the replies guys.

Yeah i have been doing some reading on the manuals that came with the telescope. tells you how to align and balance etc etc .

Got the balancing done not tried the alignment yet no point at moment as lots of clouds.

But cheers for the replies guys

[brantuk]

You should align the finder with the main tube in the light. Make sure the cross hairs fall on a distant object (far as possible) in the centre of the view through the eyepiece.

Use the great bear (saucepan) and cassiopoea ("W" shape) constellations to work out where polaris is (about half way between the two). And concentrate on pointing the mount at polaris (It's the mount you're aligning initially). Then elevate the scope to view it dead centre and that should be near enough aligned.

Now juggle the axes to get the scope looking at an object and you'll only have to track in one plane. You might need to loosen the rings so you can spin the tube to bring the finder right way up - then re-tighten them.

Hope that helps and welcome to the group