posted 12-26- 02:26 PM            

They also bought me the Autostar controller... this thing beats the hell out of screwing with star charts and an equatorial mount. Set the whole deal up last night and had aligned the scope using the computer in less than 5 minutes (aligns off of magnetic north and 2 stars) - then told it to find Jupiter - it auto-slewed around and put Jupiter about a third of the way off center at 48X. I centered Jupiter and popped in a 9.7mm eyepiece to bump it to 120X or so... crystal clear (cloud bands clearly visible) and rock steady tracking for almost an hour. Switched over to Saturn - which the computer just about nailed at just left of center in the reticle. Put in my barlow to hit a little over 240X and the tracking was still very good (about 15 minutes before Saturn drifted to an edge). At that mag the picture was still pretty crisp (ignoring atmospherics of course) and you could make out a Cassini division in Saturns belt. Didn't try any deep space objects other than the Pleiades (sp?) cluster as there was bit of fog forming by the time everybody had their fill of the planets.

Anyhow... if you enjoy astronomy and have the money I highly recommend the Meade ETX scopes... great value, small package, excellent optics.

posted 12-26- 09:27 PM               

------------------
-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 12-27- 01:44 AM            

Also, it would be a good idea to get a circular star chart - so you know what is above the horizon at any given time and have a much better chance of figuring out which star the computer wants you to center in the field of view in the scope (done during calibration)... it can be difficult if the scope says to center Altair and you have no idea if the scope is even looking in the right direction (it usually is, but sometimes it's a few degrees off and there will be several bright stars around the intended target - need to be able to figure out which one it is talking about). Also, if you view for extended periods... expect a little eye-strain at first. It takes time to get used to squinting through the eyepiece. Be careful about the first time you look at abright full moon with your scope... it can actually be painful at high magnification because it is VERY bright. Won't hurt your eyes but you might trip as you stumble around momentarily blind in one eye They make filters that screw into the eyepiece to help reduce the brightness and glare - they also make ones that only allow certain frequencies of light through. These are very useful to cancel out light pollution - a must for deep sky observing.

Some excellent reading material to get you off to a good start is:
The Backyard Astronomer's Guide By Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer
-also-
Nightwatch by the same authors.

An excellent online resource is www.astronomy.com - it has columns dedicated to beginners and a very helpful and responsive message board - including an area specifically on education for newcomers to the hobby.

Also, this probably goes without saying... but don't expect to see detail in stars... they are just better defined points of light through a scope - on a good dark night you can see some color to them. You will see double stars though, which are neat. to yournaked eye it is just one star but throughthe scope you can see that it is two closely spaced stars.

One more thing! Invest in a Barlow lense. The scope should come with 25mm and 9mm eyepieces which will yield magnifications of 14x and 39x respectively. The barlow lense acts in conjuction with the eyepieces and doubles the magnification - effectivley giving you 28X and 78X views. Alway start your observations with the 25mm and once you've located your object bump the power up. For the scope you are getting they also make a 3X Barlow (Meade Model #128)which would probably be worthwhile. These Barlows will run you about $45.00 a piece but are the best investment you can make on your scope. Another good buy would a be PL4mm eyepiece, which yields 88X without a Barlow... giving you 263X with a 3X barlow. Be warned though, at 263X it can be very difficult to get the target in the view - but once it is the view is amazing. The PL4mm runs about $40.00 bucks.

Geez... hope I don't overwhelm you! Astronomy can (not will be) be frustrating at first, but once you get the basics down it is really amazing to look for yourself at what is out there.

If you buy nothing else though, get a beginners astronomy book like one of the ones I mentioned above. A little knowledge will go a long way towards making your telescope more enjoyable!

Oh yeah... one more thing, in case you don't know. Magnification is calculated by taking the focal length of the scope (350mm in your case) and dividing by the focal lentgh of the eyepiece in use (25mm or 9mm for the ones you get with the scope).

If I don't shut up soon you won't need a book!

posted 12-27- 03:06 AM               

I can remember one time later on, when I was trying to find Saturn after a few years of not using the scope and I was getting really frustrated. I decided to go get some food in the house but spun the telescope around and left it spinning as I walked away. When I got back I looked in the viewfinder and it was ON SATURN! Just an amazing coincidence

I'm hoping to buy another one soon in 2001 to share the beauty of the heavens with my wife and son. I can't wait!

posted 12-27- 03:48 AM               

Well I don't have a scope, But I do have a K1000 Camera.

Great peice of work. Got any good lenses for it?

I keep meaning to get some but always end up spending my money on something else.

posted 12-27- 05:40 PM               

If you ever come up here, we could head out there. http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~milone/rao.html

posted 12-27- 05:58 PM            

As to the camera,yeah the K-1000 is a nice piece of equipment.I got it many years ago and I also had a Canon AE-1,the more expensive AE-1 died,light meter stopped working and the shutter speed went screwy on me and it would have cost as much to fix as repair so I've been using the K-1000 ever since with no problems.I only have a wide angle,50mm and a small zoom[not very powerful]but I don't need much more than that and soon I'll have one huge telephoto lens!!

posted 12-27- 06:35 PM            

Mudshark - one word of warning if you do any terrestrial viewing with your scope - everything will be mirror imaged. It doesn't matter when viewing objects in space if they are backwards... I mean without the telescope there's no way for you to know which way is right anyhow. They make a little doohickey call a 45 degree erecting prism for the scope that gives you a corrected terrestrial view. Very handy too because it plugs into the bottom of the scope (the eyepiece is normally on the side at the base) and makes viewing near the horizontal much more comfortable. You can get a real crick in your neck and back having to lean over and look straight down when looking at things on earth. The main reason they don't correct the view out the main eyepiece is that it requires one more lens (or a prism) and therefore you would have some light loss, thus degrading the brightness and detail of celestial images. With terrestrial objects the light loss doesn't matter.

posted 12-27- 07:06 PM            

If you have a binoculars you can get a little headstart on your scope and teach yourself to read a star chart at the same time. At www.telescope.com you can dowload and print a star chart for this month that will let you identify the brighter stars and give you a better idea of where the bright stars your telescope is going to want you to identify and center for alignment are. At the bottom right of the main page at telescope.com is a link that says "In the Sky Tonight" - you'll find the chart there. The easiest way to use it is to hold it over your head correctly oriented to the compass directions on the paper - then you can compare what is on the chart to what you actually see. A red flashlight is immensly useful for this as it will not ruin your night vision but will let you read the chart easily. If you don't a have a red light, some red cellophane over any flashlight will work.

There will be three objects out tonight that are quite bright but are not on the chart. To the southwest you should be able to see Venus as the brightest object in the sky (other than the moon if it hasn't set yet). Not much to see there because it is so bright. To the east, near M45 (the Pleiades cluster (on the chart, to the naked eye it is a fuzzy blotch in the sky that is kind of pork chop shaped), is Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter will be a bit "below" and to the "right" of M45 and quite bright - second only to Venus in brightness. Saturn will be to the right of and slightly lower than Jupiter. It is only about as bright as a bright star but should be fairly easy to find. Through a decent pair of binocs you should be able to see that Jupiter is a disc - not just a dot, and probably see some moons out next to it (look like tiny little stars in a line on either side of the planet). Saturn, if conditions are good, should resolve out to a slightly fat blob with the potential of moons next to it. M45 has a lot to show with binoculars... it changes from a fuzzy blob to 7 fairly bright stars (known as the 7 Sisters) and lots of dimmer stars (hundreds of them). Another interesting thing that you might be able to locate with binoculars is M42 in Orion (on the chart) this is the Orion Nebula and will look like a faint grey cloud - it will be fairly hard to distinguish so don't worry if you don't see it. There is also a nice double star in Orion (chart, again )that you can probably resolve with binoculars.

Hope you have some fun with it!

-Stark

Oh yeah... you will see many things listed as M### or NGC#### - these are know as Messier and NGC numbers. Basically they are catalogs of known objects in the sky - you can get Messier and NGC catalogs from any bookstore with a good astronomy section - certainly an educational thing but not absolutely neccesary. They would be helpful with your telescope though, as the computer will refer to many objects by their Messier or NGC numbers. You will see lots of Messier numbers and some NGC numbers on that start chart if you download it. Anything with 4 digits is an NGC number.

I just realized that you said you got the software package from Meade as well, I think this includes printable Messier and NGC catalogs with it - so you probably won't have to get one.

posted 12-27- 09:19 PM            

I'll shut up now... (yeah, like that's gonna happen)

posted 12-28- 04:49 AM               

Yeah I want to pick up a wide angle and zoom lens somthing up to about a 200mm. And a new flash and tripod.

LOL My bud just got a new camera with a 200 lens all crazy fancy and stuff but it feels SO FRAGIL for like 950$ I would be scared to take it where I take mine (mountain biking, camping and hiking).