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Old 15-12-2008, 02:33 PM
Coen
"Doc"

Coen is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 180
Now, realise that as soon as you open the box, have it set up and ready to use that it will rain or be clouded over for at least a week

I hope you and hub enjoy the telescope. I have been enjoying mine, as have the two oldest kids.

Get hold of some good star atlases, planisphere or some such other navigational aid (if you have not already). I recommend Taki's star charts (free, downloadable PDF's down to magnitude 8.5); he even has build your own planispheres. There is also the Tri-Atlas series but the maps are more cluttered (lots of great information) and some free to magnitude 7 atlases too. These help with either finding things to try and look at or finding out what you have just looked at. Plenty of free star-charting/planetarium type software to help as well, some are small downloads others (with lots of catalogues of information) are not so small. There are a number of web-sites that have a constellation by constellation break-down of objects to see. There are plenty of lists too.

If you want/need some suggestions on what might be good to start looking at, only need ask. The great thing is this time of year - Orion, Canis Major, Puppis through to Carina/Crux are all starting to rise again. Lots of great open clusters, globular clusters, double stars, nebulae and the like.

Note with the EQ1: if it comes with the motor drive, I found once it was situated where indicated I tended to find either the telescope tube or the counter weight would bump into it. I took it off (don't really use it anyway). I have since rigged it differently, screwing the motor mounting bracket on one of the tripod legs and getting an old long "slow motion" control cable from an old telescope mount and using that to extend the drive. The cable is a bit stiff and so there is a bit more pressure on a few points but on the whole it makes the motor drive more useful as it does not nearly interfere as much now.
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