User manual MEADE 114EQ-ASTR

[. . . ] Meade114EQASTR 3/28/07 9:33 AM Page 1 www. meade. com MEADE INSTRUCTION MANUAL 114mm | 4. 5" Equatorial Reflecting Telescope 114EQ-ASTR Meade114EQASTR 3/28/07 9:33 AM Page 2 WARNING! Never use a Meade® 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. Meade114EQASTR 3/28/07 9:33 AM Page 3 INTRODUCTION Your telescope is an excellent beginner's instrument, and is designed to observe objects in the sky. [. . . ] Most of these moons are very small and can only be seen with very large telescopes. Probably the most memorable sight you will see in your telescope is Saturn. Although you may not see many features on the surface of Saturn, its ring structure will steal your breath away. You will probably be able to see a black opening in the rings, known as the Cassini band. Saturn is not the only planet that has rings, but it is the only set of rings that can be seen with a small telescope. Jupiter's rings cannot be seen from Earth at all--the Voyager spacecraft discovered the ring after it passed Jupiter and looked back at it. It turns out, only with the sunlight shining through them, can the rings be seen. Optional color filters help bring out detail and contrast of the planets. Beyond the Solar System: Once you have observed our own system of planets, it's time to really travel far from home and look at stars and other objects. At first, you may think stars are just pinpoints of light and aren't very interesting. There is much information that is revealed in stars. The first thing you will notice is that not all stars are the same colors. The color of stars sometimes can tell you about the age of a star and the temperature that they burn at. Very often, you can find double (or binary) stars, stars that are very close together. A galaxy is a large ASTRONOMY RESOURCES · · The Meade 4M Community 6001 Oak Canyon, Irvine, CA 92618 Astronomical League Executive Secretary 5675 Real del Norte, Las Cruces, NM 88012 The Astronomical Society of the Pacific 390 Ashton Ave. , San Francisco, CA 94112 The Planetary Society 65 North Catalina Ave, Pasadena, CA 91106 International Dark-Sky Association, Inc. First Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719-2103 · · · Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Meade114EQASTR 3/28/07 9:33 AM Page 14 grouping of stars, containing millions or even billions of stars. Some galaxies 12 form a spiral (like our galaxy, the Milky Way) and other galaxies look more like a large football and are called elliptical galaxies. There are many galaxies that are irregularly shaped and are thought to have been pulled apart because they passed too close to--or even through--a larger galaxy. You may be able to see the Andromeda galaxy and several others in your telescope. Only very large telescope will reveal spiral or elliptical details. You will also be able to see some nebulas with your scope. The two easiest to see in the Northern Hemisphere are the Orion nebula during the winter and the Triffid nebula during the summer. When you become an advanced observer you can look for other types of objects such as asteroids, planetary nebula and globular clusters. [. . . ] 12), you will notice that the out-of-focus star disk image will move across the eyepiece field. Choose one of the 3 primary mirror tilt screws and slightly move the shadow to the center of the disk. Then slightly move the telescope using the flexible cable controls to center the star disk image in the center of the eyepiece. · If any further adjustments are necessary, repeat this process as many times as needed until the out-of-focus star disk appears as in Fig. [. . . ]