User manual ORION TELESCOPES & BINOCULARS SPACEPROBE 3EQ

[. . . ] INSTRUCTION MANUAL Orion SpaceProbe 3 EQ ® #9847 and #9842 Customer Support (800) 676-1343 E-mail: support@telescope. com Corporate Offices (831) 763-7000 Providing Exceptional Consumer Optical Products Since 1975 P. O. Box 1815, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 IN 173 Rev. A 0801 Finder scope Finder scope bracket Eyepiece Focuser Optical tube assembly Declination slow-motion control cable Declination setting circle Right Ascension setting circle Declination lock knob Right Ascension slow motion cable Counterweight shaft Counterweight Counterweight lock knob Right Ascension lock knob Accessory tray Latitude adjustment T-Bolt Tripod leg Accessory tray bracket attachment point Accessory tray bracket Leg lock knob Figure 1. 2 Welcome to the exciting world of amateur astronomy!Your SpaceProbe 3 EQ is a high-quality optical instrument designed for nighttime stargazing. [. . . ] so it points to where you want it near the horizon. To point the telescope to the east or west, or in other directions, you rotate the telescope on its R. A. Depending on the altitude of the object you want to observe, the counterweight shaft will be oriented somewhere between vertical and horizontal. Figure 6 illustrates how the telescope will look pointed at the four cardinal directions - north, south, east, and west The key things to remember when pointing the telescope is that a) you only move it in R. A. and Dec. , not in azimuth or latitude (altitude), and b) the counterweight and shaft will not always appear as it does in Figure 1. Using Your Telescope Astronomical Observing Choosing an Observing Site When selecting a location for observing, get as far away as possible from direct artificial light such as street lights, porch lights, and automobile headlights. The glare from these lights will greatly impair your dark-adapted night vision. Set up on a grass or dirt surface, not asphalt, because asphalt radiates more heat. Heat disturbs the surrounding air and degrades the images seen through the telescope. Avoid viewing over rooftops and chimneys, as they often have warm air currents rising from them. Similarly, avoid observing from indoors through an open (or closed) window, because the temperature difference between the indoor and outdoor air will cause image blurring and distortion. If at all possible, escape the light-polluted city sky and head for darker country skies. You'll be amazed at how many more stars and deep-sky objects are visible in a dark sky!"Seeing" and Transparency Atmospheric conditions vary significantly from night to night. "Seeing" refers to the steadiness of the Earth's atmosphere at a given time. In conditions of poor seeing, atmospheric turbulence causes objects viewed through the telescope to "boil". If, when you look up at the sky with just your eyes, the stars are twinkling noticeably, the seeing is bad and you will be limited to viewing with low powers (bad seeing affects images at high powers more severely). In conditions of good seeing, star twinkling is minimal and images appear steady in the eyepiece. Seeing is best overhead, worst at the horizon. Also, seeing generally gets better after midnight, when much of the heat absorbed by the Earth during the day has radiated off into space. Especially important for observing faint objects is good "transparency" ­ air free of moisture, smoke, and dust. All tend to scatter light, which reduces an object's brightness. [. . . ] If the "hole" appears off-center, the telescope is out of collimation. If you try the star test and the bright star you have selected is Out of collimation Collimated Figure 12. A star test will determine if a telescope's optics are properly collimated. An unfocused view of a bright star through the eyepiece should appear as illustrated on right if the optics are perfectly collimated. [. . . ]