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. Do not point the telescope at or near the Sun. [. . . ] 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. Uranus and Neptune also have faint rings. Optional color filters help bring out detail and contrast of the planets. Meade offers a line of inexpensive color filters. 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. You can observe thousands of stars with your telescope. 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. See if you can find blue, orange, yellow, white and 11 red stars. The color of stars sometimes can tell you about the age of a star and the temperature that they burn at. Other stars to look for are multiple stars. Very often, you can find double (or binary) stars, stars that are very close together. Almost all the stars you can see in the sky are part of our galaxy. 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 point this telescope at or near the Sun. 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. [. . . ] · With the star testing of the collimation complete, tighten the 3 hex-head primary mirror locking screws (2, Fig. 12) Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Meade114EQASTR 3/28/07 9:33 AM Page 21 OPTIONAL ACCESSORIES Additional Eyepieces (1. 25" barrel diameter): For higher or lower magnifications with the telescopes that accommodate 1. 25" eyepieces, Meade Series 4000 Super Plössl eyepieces, available in a wide variety of sizes, provide a high level of image resolution and color correction at an economical price. [. . . ]