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Yet another newbie

pogle57

By pogle57
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pogle57

pogle57

Posted
Posted

:D Hello to everyone. I am relatively new to astronomy and have lots of questions.

I started last year and got myself a celestron c100 ed refractor without all the goto stuff, i want to learn my way around the skies first. My main problem is living in London, capital of the light pollution league.

My first question to you is.... How on earth do i work this RA and DEc out, it is doing my head in!!!!!

Thanks.

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ZOG

ZOG

Posted
Posted

Welcome to the forum, you'll find lots of experienced folk her who will be only too happy to answer your questions, unfortunately I'm not one of them. Dec is declination and RA is right ascension, usd on EQ mounts to give a position of an object in the sky. From what i can gather, the RA and Dec setting circles on all but the best mounts are virtually useless.

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geppetto

geppetto

Posted
Posted

Welcome aboard Pogle

Make yourself at home :D

Don't knock yourself out over the RA/DEC stuff, if the setting

circles on your mount are the usual small diameter ones then they

aren't accurate enogh to find stuff.

Better to use a finder scope or red dot finder with charts and learn

to star hop your way around. :)

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CELESCOPE

CELESCOPE

Posted
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Hi and welcome to the forum , i guess when i started i just used the star hopping method , and now the go to system is really the way foward , having said that i know a few still like the setting circles , as an imager i only want to get there as fast as possible , so go to is where i would go

Rog

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Brass n glass

Brass n glass

Posted
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Welcome to the forum. I use the setting circles manually on a Vixen GP mount quite a lot for visual observation, and they work quite well. They don't always point the scope exactly at the object, but they get close enough for me to find it quickly. To get them to work the mount needs to be pointing exactly north and a lot of mounts including the GP have a small built-in telescope to help you do it. The mount needs to be exactly level and set at the right latitude. You start by finding a bright star and setting the circles at the RA and Dec figures for that star. You can then move the scope until the RA and Dec figures against the pointers on the mount are the right ones for the object you want to look at. I'm sure there's a webpag somewhere that will tell you exactly how to use the circles on your mount. Certainly some are useless. I have a lightweight EQ2 mount with setting circles, but they're a waste of time.

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