HOW TO USE YOUR NEW TELESCOPE (CONTINUED)
Understanding the Equatorial Mount
The Equatorial Mount is designed to move in any direction. It can be set to allow manual controls to track the movements of celestial bodies across the sky. This is referred to as diurnal movement: movement of celestial bodies in the direction opposite to that of the earth’s rotation and around the earth’s axis.
By aligning the telescope’s polar axis at celestial North, you will place the telescope parallel with the earth’s axis and thus be able to locate stars in the sky based on star atlas information.
1.Set up the telescope at night. Loosen the Declination Lock Knob and rotate the telescope around the declination axis until the arrow on the declination scale points to 90 degrees. Tighten the Declination Lock Knob.
2.Look up the latitude of your area in any geographical atlas. Loosen the Latitude Lock Knob and set the latitude scale to the correct latitude for your area. Aim the Finderscope at Polaris. You will probably notice that Polaris is not dead center in the Finderscope’s field of view. This is probably because your telescope is not absolutely level with the ground. Loosen the Horizontal Axis Lock Knob again and turn the telescope so that it is directly aimed at Polaris. Tighten both the Horizontal Axis Lock Knob and Latitude Lock Knob. Polaris is 1 degree from the North celestial pole. Therefore, the sighting of stars will have to be slightly adjusted as you locate them in the heavens.
LATITUDE
N N
EARTH’S AXIS
(CELESTIAL AXIS)
POLAR
AXIS
S S
POLAR AXIS & EARTH’S AXIS
8.