User manual BUSHNELL TELESCOPE HINTS

[. . . ] Waiting until the object rises well above the horizon will provide a brighter and crisper image. Objects on the horizon are viewed through several layers of Earth's atmosphere. Have you ever wondered why the moon appears orange as it sets on the horizon? [. . . ] Meanwhile, you have already setup the telescope and it too is undergoing a slight change in adapting to the weather. If you want to look at maps or notes outdoors, use a lamp or flashlight covered with red or brown paper or a red filter. EYE POSITION: Your eye must not touch the eyepiece but at the same time it must be centered on the emergent light beam. After you get your night eyes, you will note that the sky as seen in the telescope is not really black but a rather bright, luminous gray. Given this target, your eye will automatically center on the eyepiece. Obviously, a low-power eyepiece is easier to use because it has a bigger exit pupil. If desired, you can cup your hand around the eyepiece to serve as a guide until you get your eye centered on the light beam. A second feature of proper eye position is that your eye must be at or near the exit pupil point. If you are too close, you will get a hit-and-miss shadow effect; if too far, you will lose valuable area in the field-of-view. High-power eyepieces always require a closer eye position than low power. If possible, try to master the trick of keeping both eyes open since this is much less tiring than the usual one-eye squint. Two-eye viewing is easy on daytime objects or any bright night object, such as the moon. For other night targets where the emergent beam is of low luminosity, your only chance of staying "on target" is the one-eye squint. Your unaided eyes will then see distant objects clearly, while the removal of the glasses will let you crowd the eyepiece when necessary. Those with myopia have a different problem: if you remove your glasses you lose your eyes for distant objects. The best practical solution here is to keep your glasses on and use only eyepieces with long eye relief of _ inch or more. [. . . ] For example, if the finderscope is set slightly outside focus, the star images will be big and easily seen; you can even make fine crosshairs visible in this manner. Colored doubles are sometimes seen better slightly outside focus although too much of this tends to dilute the colors rather than improve them. When you use a series from low to high-power for finding and observing, it is sometimes practical to focus only the high-power eyepieces. [. . . ]