Hi there I'm David fuller
from Eyes on the sky and about 18 months ago I made a video
about how to align an equatorial mounted telescope
I got along great feedback on its got a lot of views and people been really
thankful and really supportive
of me making that video I'm really glad I've been able to help a lot of people
learn how to align
those mounts because it will make it so much easier to be able to look at things
in the night sky as the earth rotates on its axis
as the sky appears to move in relation to it.
But I've also gotten a lot of comments from people going "Okay, now that I've aligned
it, how do I use it?"
Alright I'm going to show you how to use both the refractor and a reflector
on an equatorial now and hopefully it will make it easier for everyone to
understand now how to use those equatorial mounts
so here we go. Okay so as we look at a refractor
of course remember we're starting our home position which is where we wound up
when we finished
on the last video, we were pointing at Polaris. Now let's say that it's
wintertime
and we're at mid-latitudes or so of the northern hemisphere
and we want to look at M41 which is about four degrees below the
brightest star in the sky Sirius. What we're going to do is we're going to turn our telescope
in right ascension - we're going to unlock the clutches first of course -
and then we move the telescope in right ascension and declination and have it point
this direction, because Sirius is going to be about this direction in the sky.
So as you can see I'm not terribly well balanced so what we need to do
is make sure that we are balanced by moving the
telescope within there because it may change depending on eyepiece you
actually put in there so you may need to adjust this
every so often if you put a heavier eyepiece in there or a lighter eyepiece in there
or add a barlow
and a heavier eyepiece that oftentimes can change the balance of your telescope. You may
need to adjust it as you turn it. So now we
aim our telescope... BUT!
Notice that the finder scope which you may not be able to see from here is in a really awkward
position. So I wanna turn the telescope
so for me because I like to use my right eye is on aiming. So I'm going to go like this
aim it, then I will lock up my clutches,
and you may need to even rotate
where your star diagonal is - I want to be able to show you this so you can see that -
Do not be afraid to rotate your star diagonal
so it's in a position that makes easier for you to be able to see
when you point at the object you want to look at. So you lock those clutches in
aim it at your object, use a low-power eyepiece, set it in there,
turn on motor drive or use your slow motion controls
and now you can look at the object that you want to see. If you use a reflector
telescope
you can do the same thing. You are going to unlock your clutches,
rotate your telescope around... now for me
this might be a little bit more awkward to use with my left eye so what I want
to do is I want to rotate my tube
like this so I can now
look through the telescope this way, and aim it
at the object I want to see. Lock my clutches back into place
and now I'm all set. Now you'll notice both these telescopes
are higher than counterweights of the equatorial mount.
That's an important thing because we are east of
due-south of the meridian. The meridian of course runs from North all the way to South -
it splits the sky in half in the east to west sections when you look in this
direction you want to make sure that your telescopes
are above your counterweights when they're below the counterweights
that makes things really awkward. Notice how that looks odd
your telescope is really low it's not a good situation
for how you want to use the mount. You want the telescope above the counterweight
like this
The only time that's going to be different is let's say that you object
is now rotate and it's not quite
at due south, but it's pretty close but you know you're gonna watch it for a little
while and it's gonna go
across the meridian. Well what's going to happen is, its going to go up and across the sky and then it
can
going to start coming back down because it's gonna set in the West. So its going to go up a little
bit and then come back down.
This is where you can take your telescope and now
you want to put your counterweight just a little bit higher. But look at what
happened
to our focuser! Now we need to rotate the tube
around like this and what you need to do to be able to do that is
you'll notice that there are some locks here. So you're gonna lock your
telescope in place. But, you want to leave it loose enough that you can rotate
the telescope tube within those rings.
So you leave it a little bit lower and as you let your motor drive go or as you turn your
slow motion controls
your telescope is now going to rotate past the Meridian past that South
direction and now you're counterweight will be below it so that a
a situation where that's okay to be able to do that. And also you rotate your tube
so you got your eyepiece in right direction. Same idea
for a refractor when you turn in this way
you to watch out for the motor drive - we don't have a slow motion control run
into it
and go like this. We can lock
our clutches back in place and look at the direction that my eye pieces now
facing it now facing down.
So I wanna unlock that, turn it up,
so its in a more comfortable position. But now my finder scope with an awkward position
so now I need to turn that
and now turn my eyepiece diagonal
back up. So now I can use my right eye to find my
object. My eyepiece is now going to be in a comfortable position for me
to be look at so there's your South, of both
East of the Meridian and West of the Meridian.
But what if you want to look at something overhead? Not too difficult
all you have to do is undo your lock
Let's say I want to look at something like M13 as it's coming up.
Same idea... if it's not past the Meridian I want my telescope on this side a bit
so I aim it - of course now it's in a difficult position for me to get at, so
I want to turn my telescope
tube, and be able to look at M13.
And this is something about reflectors that can happen is
the weight of the focuser is actually causing the telescope tube to move this way
its not that
everything is out of balance on that mount - it's that the
weight of the focuser and the eyepiece is actually going to make the tube
do this. There's a couple of ways around that. You can actually put a weight down here
opposite side using a magnet if you've got a steel tube,
or you may need to stick something on there if it's an aluminum tube or plastic tube.
And that will help counterbalance the weight of
the focuser. But you can then aim this way - you lock your clutches into place -
and now you can track your object that way. You can of course rotate your tube if
you need to
always start with a low-power eyepiece to find it first and then you can bump up
magnification.
Now if it's gone past the meridian again? You want to do the same thing where you flip
around
to the other side, cause you want your telescope tube above the counterweight
and then lock your
clutches in place, turn on your motor drive, and now you can watch.
This may be an uncomfortable position cuz this eyepiece is now facing towards
the ground
I may want to actually rotate the tube this way, so that I'm either behind it
the mount this way or to the side of the mount like this
so now my eyepiece a slightly up although then it puts my finderscope in an awkward
position.
So does take some manipulating on the tube itself particularly with the
reflector and sometimes even with the refractor
because you're going to unlock these clutches
and you are going to come around this way, say...
like this, and you will note that, where that
eyepiece location is. Look at this - it is aiming way down here
you may want to be facing up slightly so you have it out this way
so it's at least facing up and then you - for me anyway I want to use my right
eye so I have the
finder scope on this side. Now if it's gone past the Meridian
I may have a problem with this particular mount because I have got a mounter mount
here
So what am I gonna do? Well it might run into it. I might need to wait
either couple hours for that object to rotate out of the way... I may need to move
my motor mount our way entirely, and because of that I may need to use the manual
drive. Now on this mount I don't have to worry about that so much because the only
thing that really run into each other at the declination in right ascension knobs
occasionally when I have the tube around on this side. But with this, it's a large
motor mount. It's a big one, its bulky
in the way, it's in the way when I want to try to look at stuff overhead! You can see how that's
running into that.
That a problem. It's unfortunate it's its a less expensive mount,
and sometimes less expensive mounts are not designed to account for those things
you just have to work around it. Either wait for the object to be a different part in
the sky either by waiting a couple hours at night
or, wait a month or two for the object to rotate into a different part in the sky at
the same time
night. Now if you want to look towards the north, that can be a little bit trickier
but this is why it's so important to have these mounds
balanced properly because you want to be able to
aim... let's say you were looking at like, M81 / M82
near Ursa Major. That is a difficult one to actually get to because
you're looking that end... well, I look at the end bowl star... to find those I kind of draw
a line diagonally across the bowl
and I go out a similar distance in that direction, and that's how I find them. But the scope
doesn't move
easily in that direction. I kind of have to force it to go the directions that I
want to
and it's not necessarily easy but if you go slowly you can move it in the right
directions and all you have to do
is move it, and going to stay where you need to, provided you have some issues
with your focuser
balance... you know, moving your balance out of whack.
Then you lock it into place. You do not have to worry so much about left side / right side
just obviously don't want to be way the heck down here
like this... to be looking at that direction. That's
not the way you want to do it. You want to have the telescope up above
and then lock in place follow with the right ascension
same idea with your refractor you can
move it up towards the northern portion the sky
lock it in place, turn on your motor drive, use your right ascension knob to be able to follow
things
so that you do not have to move like an alt-azimuth mount like
a typical tripod per se like photographic tripod that is gonna go up and
down
and around a center post because to follow things that way
you have to move it in two directions at the same time to follow the sky, because
the sky
goes across a curved wine in most direction because it's like taking
the latitude and longitude earth and throwing them out
onto you the celestial sphere which we looks like it's a
sphere as we look up at the sky even though its infinity it looks like a
sphere and those
lines go in curved motions as the earth rotates.
So it's much easier to be able to use this kind of Mount
for tracking those objects particularly higher power so
and of course, the fork mounts of
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes do a similar thing they just doing a little bit
different fashion
because the way the shorter tubes are and the way fork mount is designed.
But hopefully that has given you a good idea of how to do it with either a
refractor or reflector on an equatorially-mounted telescope.
I'm David Fuller, thank you so much watching keep your eyes on the sky
and your outdoor lights aimed down so we can all see what's up
in