Help me with my telescope!?
I have a Celestron AstroMaster 114EQ Telescope and I'm having a bit of trouble using it. I have located some easy objects (jupiter, the moon, some bright stars) using the finderscope, but i want to move onto fainter objects. This means that i want to learn how to use the declination and right ascension properly. I understand what they are, but i can't figure out how to set them and stuff. The manual told me to find polaris which I did and i set the dec and RA, but then when i tried to point it at jupiter using it's dec/RA points, my telescope ended up pointing nowhere near it and in a big mess!! Can someone explain - -Why i was meant to find polaris -How to set latitude -How to correctly set the RA and dec -How to find objects in the sky using RA and dec -Anything else useful -And maybe some cool things to look at once i've got it working. Help please, i want to be able to use it so badly, and I'm in the UK and there are a few days of high pressure so now may be the only clear nights for a while!! Thanks :)
Too cloudy to use telescope? What else could I do?
Here in Australia the skies are completely covered in clouds and have been for a number of days? Yesterday was the worst, it got to the point where I couldn't even see the moon through the naked eye. What other interesting things can I do to pass time since it will be like this for the next week or two.
Can anyone help me with my InPhase telescope?
You have a newtonian reflector telescope. The Mirror is 76mm or just about 3" in diameter. The focal length is 700mm. The barlow is apt to be of little use. They include them so they can advertise silly high power beyond what the scope can actually resolve. If it came with more than one eyepiece, you'd only use one at a time. I'd suggest starting out with the lowest power eyepiece to observe the Moon tonight. If the focus is not set right, you may not see anything at all. It's unlikely the scope will focus on anything closer than several hundred feet away. The focuser will probably have at least an inch of travel. If you're interested in astronomy, it would make sense to find a local astronomical society and attend some meetings. You'll be able to look through their scopes, and they'll probably be happy to help you get off to a good start.
What is the difference between a 25mm and a 10mm telescope eyepiece?
Eyepieces with smaller focal lengths produce larger magnifications with any given telescope! This numeric value is known as the focal length of the eyepiece (measured in millimeters). This is probably the most important characteristic of an eyepiece because it allows you to calculate how much magnification the eyepiece will provide. The actual magnification an eyepiece provides depends on the focal length of the telescope. To determine the magnification that an eyepiece provides, two pieces of information are needed. One is the focal length of the eyepiece and the second is the focal length of the telescope in which the eyepiece will be used. Almost every telescope ever made will have the focal length marked on it, usually near where the eyepiece goes into the scope. Focal lengths for typical beginner telescopes will be in the range from around 500mm to 1200mm. To determine the magnification that a particular eyepiece provides, a simple calculation is done: divide the focal length of the telescope by the focal length of the eyepiece. Suppose you have a telescope with a focal length of 700mm and an eyepiece of focal length 25mm. The magnification that the eyepiece provides in this telescope will be 700/25 = 28x (often called "28 power"). Now let's take the same scope but use a second eyepiece of focal length 10mm. The magnification provided by this eyepiece will be 700/10 = 70x. Remember: eyepieces with smaller focal lengths produce larger magnifications with any given telescope!