User manual MEADE 60 EQ-A Instruction Manual

[. . . ] Instruction Manual Meade 60EQ-A: 2. 4" (60mm) Equatorial Refracting Telescope Meade Instruments Corporation 6001 OAK CANYON, IRVINE, CALIFORNIA 92618-5200 U. S. A. (949) 451-1450 s www. meade. com © 2004 20084 04/04 ­2­ WARNING: NEVER USE A MEADE 60MM REFRACTOR TELESCOPE TO LOOK AT THE SUN!LOOKING AT OR NEAR THE SUN WILL CAUSE INSTANT AND IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE TO YOUR EYE. EYE DAMAGE IS OFTEN PAINLESS, SO THERE IS NO WARNING TO THE OBSERVER THAT DAMAGE HAS OCCURRED UNTIL IT IS TOO LATE. CHILDREN SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE ADULT SUPERVISION WHILE OBSERVING. Limited Warranty Every Meade telescope, spotting scope, and telescope accessory is warranted by Meade Instruments Corporation ("Meade") to be free of defects in materials and workmanship for a period of ONE YEAR from the date of original purchase in the U. S. A. [. . . ] s s Star Right Ascension (R. A. ): This celestial version of longitude is measured in units of hours (hr), minutes (min), and seconds Celestial Equator (sec) on a 24-hour "clock" (similar to how Earth's time zones are determined by longitude lines). The "zero" line was arbitrarily chosen to pass through the constellation Pegasus, a Rotation of the sort of cosmic Greenwich meridian. There are 24 primary Right lines of R. A. , located at 15-degree intervals along the celestial Ascension equator. Celestial Pole Declination (Dec. ): This celestial version of latitude is measured in degrees, arc-minutes, and arc-seconds (e. g. , 15° 27' 33"). locations South of the celestial equator are indicated with a minus (­) sign (e. g. , the Dec. Any point on the celestial equator (such as the the constellations of Orion, Virgo, and Aquarius) is said to have a Declination of zero, shown as 0° 0' 0. " See Fig. 8. ation clin De 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 17 18 19 7 6 5 20 21 22 23 0 1 2 4 3 0° Dec. North Celestial Pole (Vicinity of Polaris) +90° Déc. As all celestial objects therefore may be located with their celestial coordinates of Right Ascension and Declination, the task of finding objects (in particular, faint objects) in the telescope is vastly simplified. 2) of your telescope may be dialed, in effect, to read the object coordinates and the object found without resorting to visual location techniques. However, these setting circles only perform correctly if the telescope is properly aligned with the North Celestial Pole. LINING UP WITH THE CELESTIAL POLE Objects in the sky appear to revolve around the celestial pole. (Actually, celestial objects are essentially "fixed, " and their apparent motion is caused by the Earth's rotation). During any 24 hour period, stars make one complete revolution about the pole, circling with the pole at the center. 2) with the North Celestial Pole (or for observers located in Earth's Southern Hemisphere with the South Celestial Pole), astronomical objects may be followed, or "tracked, " by moving the telescope about one axis, the polar axis. Little Dipper Polaris Big Dipper Cassiopeia Figure 9: Finding Polaris If the telescope is reasonably well aligned with the pole, therefore, very little use of the telescope's Declination flexible cable control is necessary and virtually all of the required telescope tracking will be in Right Ascension. (If the telescope were perfectly aligned with the pole, no Declination tracking of stellar objects would be required whatsoever). For the purposes of casual visual telescopic observations, lining up the telescope's polar axis to within a degree or two of the pole is more than sufficient: with this level of pointing accuracy, the telescope can track accurately by slowly turning the telescope's R. A. flexible cable control and keep objects in the telescopic field of view for perhaps 20 to 30 minutes. POLAR ALIGNMENT OF THE EQUATORIAL MOUNT To line up the Meade 60EQ-A with the pole, follow this procedure: 1. 1) of the Azimuth base, so that the entire telescope-with-mounting may be rotated in a horizontal direction. Level the mount, if necessary, by adjusting the heights of the three tripod legs. ­9­ 3. Determine the latitude of your observing location by checking a road map or atlas. 1) and tilt the telescope mount so that the star "Polaris" is centered in the telescope's viewfinder eyepiece, then re-tighten the latitude lock. If steps (1) - (3) above were performed with reasonable accuracy, your telescope is now sufficiently wellaligned to the North Celestial Pole for visual observations. Once the mount has been polar-aligned as described above, the latitude angle need not be adjusted again, unless you move to a different geographical location (i. e. The only polar alignment procedure that you need to perform each time you use the telescope is to point the polar axis due North, as described in step (1) above. USING THE TELESCOPE 1. [. . . ] In this case, note that the diagonal mirror results in an image which is reversed left-for-right, but which is correctly oriented up-and-down. For a fully corrected image, the #928 Erect Image Prism system is required. Terrestrial observations should almost always be made using a low-power eyepiece for bright, sharp images. Land objects will not normally accept higher powers because the telescope is being used through the thickest part of the Earth's atmosphere, unlike astronomical observations made by pointing the telescope up through the atmosphere. · · CALCULATING POWER The power, or magnification, at which a telescope is operating is determined by 2 factors: The optical, or focal, length of the telescope's objective lens and the focal length of the eyepiece. [. . . ]