Amateur Astronomy for Beginners - Telescopes Part 2

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A brief discusion of telescope mounts: Alt-Azmuth, equatorial, and dobsonian. Also answering a question about moon phases sent to me by email.

Channel: Howto & Style
Uploaded: November 30, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Author: truemartian

Length: 00:08:30
Rating: 4.82
Views: 30501

Tags: astronomy telescope amateur altazmuth equatorial dobsonian

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Video Comments:
yammo12 (December 30, 2008 at 7:04 pm)
Hi True thanks for you speedy reply i never heard of an laser collimator. It takes all guess work out of setting up the mirror once again im a lot wiser thanks for the information.
Eamonn Dunne {Dublin Ireland }
yammo12 (December 29, 2008 at 9:21 pm)
Hi True
I have my telescope three years and I never had a clue about how to align the mount you,re video was very interesting im a lot wiser thanks to you can you help me I took out the primary mirror to clean I don't know if I have it aligned properly can you give me advice on how to align it, or perhaps you could add a video on the subject I have a five and a half niche reflector and any help would be great.
Keep up the good work I have learned a lot from you.

Eamonn Dunne {Dublin Ireland}
truemartian (December 30, 2008 at 6:53 am)
Hi thanks so much for watching and commenting. I would love to do a collimation video but I dont feel that my current understanding of the subject is good enough yet. I can tell you that there are several devices available on the market that help with the process. I myself use a laser collimator.
Nkatsikanis (November 15, 2008 at 12:40 pm)
got this reflector here, takes a while to figure all this out
lair333 (September 24, 2008 at 6:34 pm)
Yah, later on that night I was reading and figured out how they came up with "0" hour. And I figured the same thing. Just look at stellarium, find something I know and set circles like that. Probably the easiest way.
lair333 (September 22, 2008 at 8:03 pm)
Anyway,
Concerning equitorial mounts, Im wondering how to read the RA and declination readings. Do you know what I'm talking about? For instance, I have a list of messier objects that are listed like this: M57 RA=18h 52mins Dec.+32 degrees 58 ??(feet?) Can you make a video describing that? The graph thingy on my telescope spins, so I'm guessing that when I set it to polaris, that becomes 0??? Anyway, any light you can shed on this would be helpful. And thanks for your guidance.
truemartian (September 23, 2008 at 7:15 am)
The "graph thingys" are called setting circles. Once you polar align the scope you can home in on a bright star with a known coordinant(not Polaris) and align the setting circles to match the coordinats of the star you home in on. Theoretically you can then find any object using its coordinates and the aligned setting circles.
lair333 (September 22, 2008 at 7:54 pm)
Hello again truemartian,
Well, I bought a telescope. I decided to go with a cheap one. It is serving its purpose. I have learned alot from it. It is a galileo 118 mm that I got for $100.00 from ebay. It even has an equitorial mount (kinda cheap though). But I have learned from that exactly what I want. I definitely need dual-axis motors to be able to move around without shaking the hell out of the telescope. And an electronic focuser for the very same reason. I have another comment,...
manzunis (September 11, 2008 at 10:15 pm)
great work!
niiittthhhiiinnn1997 (July 5, 2008 at 3:45 am)
ya!very good