Note: Items that could potentially damage the telescopes or you are marked with a red lightning bolt (~). Items that could cause you to use the telescope incorrectly are marked with a red exclamation point (!).
Consult the diagram for reference. Setting up your telescope consists of these main steps:
I. Setting up and aligning the mount.
II. Attaching the telescope to the mount
III. Installing the eyepieces and focusing.
IV. Aligning the finderscope.
V. Attaching the clock drive.
! These instructions may seem long, tedious, and intimidating, and they probably are. The process they describe will be quite quick and easy once you do it a couple of times. You and your partner can do the whole set up in less than 10 minutes. We will take the first lab time just to get familiar with the operation of the telescopes (and do a little “fun” observing if possible). You should keep these instructions with you and follow them in subsequent labs.
~ When carrying the telescope, make sure you have a firm grip on the box. Do not drop the box or wham into things. The box is long, and it can easily become part of a “Three Stooges” routine, damaging the telescope. The lid latches for the box are part of the handle. Make sure you are not holding the box only by the latches, as they may snap and the lid come off, dropping the box.
~ When carrying the tripod, do not hold it by any of the plastic or movable parts. Carry it with one hand on the counterweight rod (the chrome-plated rod) and with one hand on the opposite tripod leg. Be careful not to wham into things with the tripod legs.
~ Any time you want to use the fine adjustment knobs on either axis, you must loosen the clutch on the motor drive for that axis by turning the clutch counterclockwise. The clutches are the silver knobs at each motor drive.
~ All hand knobs and hand screws--with the exception of the clutches--should be adjusted finger tight and no tighter. They should be snug but not jammed in. You’re not putting lug nuts on a wheel.
~ When loosening knobs and hand screws, loosen them just enough to remove the piece they are holding. If you loosen them too much, you can drop them in the grass in the dark (i.e., you lost them).
! The clutches for the motor drives must be tightened in order for the drives to work. They should be tightened snuggly so they don't loosen as the motors turn. To loosen the clutches and use the fine adjustment knobs, you should loosen them about one-half turn.
I. Setting up and aligning the mount.
1. Turn the tripod so the “N” on the tripod head is on the north side.
2. Unless you are quite short or will be observing objects near the horizon, you need to extend the legs of the tripod to raise it up higher. Here's how:
a. Loosen the hand knobs near the bottom of each tripod leg.
b. Lift up the mount.
c. The legs should slide down on their own. If not, your partner can pull them down.
d. ~ Tighten the hand knobs on each leg before letting go of the tripod.
3. Remove the covers from both ends of the polar axis and put them in the accessory tray between the tripod legs. There is a small telescope, the polar alignment scope, inside the polar axis.
4. If it has not been stored that way, rotate the telescope mount's declination axis so that you can see through the polar axis finder by:
a. Loosening the declination lock lever.
b. Then turning the declination axis so that you can see through the hole in the declination axis shaft. Then re-tighten the declination lock lever.
5. Move the whole tripod until the polar axis is approximately lined up on Polaris. You should be able to see Polaris through the polar axis finder. If not, you can move the tripod leg on the south side (away from Polaris) a little. You can move the mount up and down a little by pushing the “high” leg into the ground more.
· Note that the view through the polar axis finder is reversed left-to-right and up-to-down.
6. This rough alignment will do for most of your labs, so usually you can go on to attaching the telescope to the mount. If (and only if) you need a more precise polar alignment, follow these additional steps:
a. When you look through the polar axis finder, you should see a crosshair (making an “X”) with a circle around it. If you can’t see the crosshair, your partner can shine a red flashlight at an angle into the front of the polar axis. The center of the “X” should be on the north celestial pole. This is accomplished by adjusting the mount until Polaris is on the circle at the proper orientation. (Polaris is not exactly at the north celestial pole. It is off from it by an angle equal to the radius of the circle.) Using Cassiopeia, Polaris should be on the circle opposite the flatter part of the “W” of Cassiopeia. Using the Big Dipper, Polaris should be on the circle on the same side as the end of the handle of the Big Dipper.
b. Adjust the tripod until Polaris is at the right spot on the circle by:
i. Adjusting the azimuth (left-to-right) using the azimuth adjustment knobs – the small black knobs on either side of the north side of the tripod head.
ii. Adjusting the altitude (up-and-down) using the latitude adjustment T-bolts – the silver screws with the “floppy” handles on either side of the tripod head.
7. Replace the covers on both ends of the polar axis.
II. Attaching the telescope to the mount.
1. At the very top of the mount you will see a groove or channel with a large black knob and a small silver knob screwed into it. This channel is where the mounting plate on the telescope goes. Loosen both the large black knob and the silver knob enough so that their screws are not poking into the channel.
2. Lift the telescope out of its box by the mounting plate and/or the telescope tube. Please note:
· ~ Use both hands to pick up the telescope.
· ~ Never lift the telescope by either end, either by the dew shield around the main lens or by the focus knobs or focus tube. The dew shield will come off easily, and you could drop the telescope. The focuser is not designed to be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the telescope.
· ! Attaching the telescope should be considered a two-person job, at least initially.
3. Place the telescope’s mounting plate into the channel on the mount, centering it long-ways in the channel. Hold onto the telescope until the knobs are both tightened (steps 4 & 5).
4. Tighten the large black knob first. Do not over tighten.
5. Tighten the small silver knob second.
III. Installing the eyepieces and focusing.
1. Install the star diagonal in the focuser tube by inserting it and hand-tightening the two thumbscrews which hold it on the focuser tube.
2. Install the low-power eyepiece (30 mm) in the star diagonal by inserting it and hand-tightening the single thumbscrew which holds it in place.
3. Turn the focuser tube out about 1-1/2 to 2 inches for a rough focus. The next several steps tell you how to aim the telescope at a distant object, center it, and bring it to focus.
4. Unlock the right ascension and declination lock levers to allow the telescope to move.
5. ~ Loosen the clutches on both axes in order to use the fine control knobs to fine tune the pointing of the telescope.
6. Move the tube of the telescope until a security light or other bright object several hundred meters away is visible in the low-power eyepiece.
· ~ Do not move the tube of the telescope by holding the focus tube or focus knobs. Hold it by the main part of the tube (the white part).
7. Lock the right ascension and declination lock levers to hold the telescope in place when the object is in the field of view.
· ~ Do not attempt to aim the telescope by moving the tube by hand when the lock levers are in place.
8. Use the focuser knobs to bring the object into sharp focus in the eyepiece. Move the focuser knobs slowly until the object "snaps" into focus. If you are looking at a security light, it should appear very sharp and highly magnified through the eyepiece.
9. Adjust the pointing of the telescope until the object is in the very center of the eyepiece by using the fine control knobs on either axis.
IV. Aligning the finderscope
! Aligning the finderscope may be the single most important step to successful use of the telescope. If the finderscope is not accurately aligned with the main telescope, you will not be able to locate objects in the eyepiece. This must be done with great accuracy; the object must be in view at the center of the telescope's eyepiece and exactly on the crosshairs of the finderscope.
1. Without moving the telescope, alternately loosen and tighten the screws around the back ring holding the finderscope in place until your object is at the very center of the crosshairs in the finderscope. Then make sure all the screws on the finderscope are snug.
2. Check to make sure the object is still centered in your eyepiece.
3. Recheck that the object is centered in the finderscope crosshairs.
! If you do not get the finderscope accurately aligned, you will not be able to find objects in the sky, and you will not have enough time to finish your lab assignments. A couple of minutes spent here getting this right will save you a great amount of time later. The view through the eyepiece of a telescope shows only a tiny portion of the sky, and use of the finderscope is necessary to point the telescope in the right direction.
V. Attaching the clock drive.
1. Unwrap the cord from the battery pack and hang the pack over the azimuth adjustment knobs on the tripod head or lay it in the accessory tray between the tripod legs.
2. Unwrap the cords from the hand controller of the clock drive. Note that there are two cords, one marked “RA” for right ascension and one marked “dec” for declination.
3. Plug the RA cord into the right ascension drive inside the black plastic box under the polar axis. The plug is on the underside near the counterweight rod.
4. Plug the dec cord into the declination drive at the gray plug just under the telescope.
· ! Keep the cords underneath the telescope and watch that they do not tangle as you move the scope around.
5. Plug the power cord from the battery pack into the hand controller.
6. Aim the telescope at an object in the sky by centering it on the crosshairs of the finderscope. Once you can see the object through the finderscope, tighten the lock levers, then use your fine control knobs to aim the scope and get the object on the finderscope's crosshairs.
7. Turn on the clock drive by moving the switch from “off” to “N.”
· ! The clutches must be tightened in order for the clock drive to move the telescope.
8. Re-adjust the focus or change eyepieces as needed.
9. With the clock drive running and the clutches tightened, you can use the hand controller to "steer" the telescope to keep an object centered or to move to a nearby object.