Today I was picking up a used refrigerator from a seller who was moving. I said, “You have a telescope. How cool!” and the woman asked if I wanted it. She said they were given it and never use it and don’t want to move it to their new house. So I am now the proud owner of a Galileo Optics refracting telescope. it says it’s 1000mm X 120mm. I set it up outside but really couldn’t see anything. It says I need to calibrate it during the day, but I was hoping to at least see a star.
Does anyone have any tips or hints? I live out in the middle of nowhere and can see a beautiful night sky, with tons of stars. It should be a great place for star-watching.
Once you calibrate it, start with the Moon, and then move on to the bigger planets. Once you learn good observing techniques you can try some of the fainter objects, like nebulas. 120mm isn’t very big, so you won’t be able to see really deep-sky objects, but it’s enough for you to get a start.
No real tips, I just wanted to mention that looking through a telescope at a star isn’t much different than looking through nothing at a star. It’s always just gonna be a point of light.
Like beowulff said, the Moon, planets (and some of their moons… especially Jupiter) and some nebulas is where it’s at.
It’ll take some practice, but it’ll be so worth it!
(And if you end up liking that, try a pair of decent binoculars…)
Geek Child #3 just got a telescope from my mother in law and has been completely fascinated by it. Right now, you can get an excellent view of the moon. There’s a bright “star” not too far from the moon that is actually Jupiter. If you look at it, you can see its four largest moons. Depending on your telescope (and your eyes), you may even be able to faintly see the bands in Jupiter’s atmosphere.
The moon is pretty bright and is big enough that it’s easy to get into the telescope’s viewing area. You can use it to calibrate and focus the telescope.
I could never figure out if that was Jupiter or not. I only have my ipod star map to go by.
To the OP, have you checked out your local natural history museum? I know ours, once a month, has a Star Party, where the local astronomy club sets up telescopes. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to teach you how to use it.
Some good suggestions here. Right now the moon is nearly full, and it is difficult to see much as it is too flat lighted. When it begins to wane, then focus on the edge between the light and dark sides. Everything will be side-lighted and show very well. You will see many craters and mountains. Then each night, the delineator will move, so you will see new stuff.
You can see a lot of interesting stuff on the moon. You can also find a moon map online so you can see the names of the craters.
Then, as has been mentioned, move on to the planets. The library will have a lot of good books on “backyard astronomy” so check those out.
And see if there is an astronomy club anywhere close. The have frequent “star parties” where all the members set up their scopes, some with really massive ones. They will be delighted to let you look through them all, and help you set up and polar align your scope.
Does it have a motor drive? if not, you will have to gently move it as the earth turns to keep your object in view, but you will eventually learn how to do that with practice.
Be carefull, once you begin to see the wonders of the night sky, you will want bigger and bigger scopes. Pay no attention to magnification, aperture size is the key to gathering more light.
You mentioned that the telescope is a “refractor”. Are you sure it isn’t a reflector? A refracting scope with an objective lens of 120 mm (almost 5") is a very big telescope. Also the focal length is more in line with a reflector than a refractor. A regular refractor with an objective lens of that size would have a length of almost six feet, unless it were an apochromatic telescope, and here we’re talking big bucks, several thousands of dollars at least.
Does it have a mirror at the bottom instead of a lens at the top? If so, it’s a reflector, and I’m betting it looks like this one:
If this is the case, you’ve got yourself a pretty decent beginners telescope.
Setting up the telescope so that all the mirrors are in adjustment is called colimnating, although I suppose it could be referred to as calibrating. You need to do this as an out-of-adjustment reflector is pretty bad. The owners manual should give instructions - if not a book store should have books for beginning astronomers that cover this.
I envy you your dark sky location. Since I could afford a good telescope I’ve never lived anywhere within fifty miles of good seeing.
Daylate - You’re right, it is a reflector. The model number is FS-120. The manual is only 10 pages long and very poorly written. Hpw do you actually align the mirrors and lenses?
Klondike Geoff - It doesn’t have a motor, it has counterweights.
RandMcNally - I just got this a couple days ago, so I haven’t had time to check out clubs, but maybe I will. There’s also a local university - would they likely have a club?
How do I keep my eyelashes from getting in the way?
I envy you,I’ve always loved astronomy but where I live theres too much light pollution.
I hope you let us all know how you get on so that we can enjoy some astronomy vicariously.
Regarding eyelashes, you might have to get one or more different eyepieces with better eye relief. With good eyepieces, eyslashes shouldn’t be a problem.
Considering the probable quality of your scope, I would suggest that any eyepiece you get should be at lease 1/2" focal length. That will result of a magnifying power of 78, which will show a lot of stuff, and shouldn’t strain the optics of your scope. Then get one of 3/4" to 1" for lower power work.
The biggest mistake beginning astronomers make is trying to use too high a power. If your scope turns out to be of really high quality, you can get a shorter focus eyepiece.
BTW, Power = focal length of mirror divided by focal length of eyepiece.
With perfect optics and seeing, the maximum power you can get without running into problems with the basic nature of light waves is around 50 times the diameter of the mirror in inches. As a practical matter, the real maximum is closer to 20 to 25 times the diameter. Higher powers are hard to use and often don’t show much more. This is called “empty magnification”.