Meade RCX400TM instruction manual Maintenance, Test your Collimation

MAINTENANCE

RCX400 telescopes are precision optical instruments designed to yield a lifetime of rewarding applications. Given the care and respect due any precision instrument, your RCX400 will rarely, if ever, require factory servicing. Maintenance guidelines include:

a.Avoid cleaning the telescope’s optics: A little dust on the front surface of the tele- scope’s correcting lens causes virtually no degradation of image quality and should not be considered reason to clean the lens.

b.When absolutely necessary, dust on the front lens should be removed with gen- tle strokes of a camel hair brush or blown off with an ear syringe (available at any pharmacy). DO NOT use a commercial photographic lens cleaner.

c.Organic materials (e.g., fingerprints) on the front lens may be removed with a solution of 3 parts distilled water to 1 part isopropyl alcohol. You may also add 1 drop of biodegradable dishwashing soap per pint of solution. Use soft, white facial tissues and make short, gentle strokes. Change tissues often.

Caution: Do not use scented or lotioned tissues or damage could result to the optics.

d.Do not, for any reason, remove the correcting plate from its machined housing for cleaning or other purposes. You will almost certainly not be able to replace the corrector in its proper rotational orientation and serious degradation of optical performance will result. Meade Instruments assumes no liability for damage incurred to the telescope in this way.

e.If the RCX400 is used outdoors on a humid night, water condensation on the tel- escope surfaces will probably result. While such condensation does not normally cause any damage to the telescope, it is recommended that the entire telescope be wiped down with a dry cloth before the telescope is packed away. Do not, how- ever, wipe any of the optical surfaces. Rather, simply allow the telescope to sit for some time in the warm indoor air, so that the wet optical surfaces can dry unat- tended.

f.If your RCX400 is not to be used for an extended period, perhaps for one month or more, it is advisable to remove the batteries from the telescope. Batteries left in the telescope for prolonged periods may leak, causing damage to the tele- scope’s electronic circuitry.

g.Do not leave your RCX400 inside a sealed car on a warm summer day; excessive ambient temperatures can damage the telescope’s internal lubrication and elec- tronic circuitry.

Collimation

The optical collimation (alignment) of any astronomical telescope used for serious pur- poses is important, but in the case of the RCX design, such collimation is absolutely essential for good performance. Take special care to read and understand this section well so that your telescope will give you the best optical performance.

As part of final optical testing, every Meade RCX400 telescope is precisely collimated at the Meade factory before shipment. However, vibrations in shipping can cause the optical system to become misaligned. Re-aligning the optics is, however, a straight- forward process with the RCX400.

Test your Collimation

Before collimating your RCX400, you will need to test your collimation.

To test the collimation, center a bright star that is overhead, or use a “hot spot” of reflected Sunlight from a chrome car bumper, with the supplied 24mm eyepiece. Allow the telescope to adjust to the temperature of your observation site before proceeding; temperature differences between the optics and the outside air can cause distortion in the images. Autostar II offers two options in the Utilities menus that take temperature readings: “OTA Temperature” (the temperature of the corrector plate) and “Ambient Temperature” (the temperature of the air around the fork arms).

When the star or hot spot is centered, de-focus the image. You will notice that the out of focus star image looks like a ring of light surrounding a dark central spot; the dark central spot is in fact the shadow of the secondary mirror. You may notice multiple

51