Hi Folks!
I just typed all this out and while I was previewing it, my system crashed (video card came loose apparently), so I'm gonna try and remember everything I had typed in before....

First off, thanks again to everyone who helped me out with my scope decision! If ya haven't read the other post, I took the "toy" back today and ended up getting a Meade DS 2114 ATS 114mm 4.5" reflector. It was a little more then I really wanted to spend, but after playing with it a little tonight, I think I can safely say I'm going to be quite happy with this scope :-). I'm still workin thru the manual and have a few things to figure out with the Autostar (some of which I'll be askin about in a little bit here), but after playing with it manually this evening, my wife and I were able to see Jupiter and 4 of her moons! With the help of my laptop and my Distant Suns software, I was able to identify the moons as Calisto, IO, Europa and Ganymede...but I'm sure most of you folks already knew that :-). The scope only came with a 25mm and a 9mm lense...I'll be heading out tomorrow to pickup a Barlow (which I also have questions one). Needless to say...I'm hooked!

Most of these questions thus far are hardware related...as a musician I know that you have to be familiar with how to work an electric guitar and an amplifier in order to make music thru such a rig. It seems the same is quite true of astronomy equipment as well. I'll be getting to the actual astronomy questions later as I learn how to properly operate everything.

Also, I know that I can probably find most, if not all of this stuff around on the web....call me lazy, but after this week I have stuff like heliocentric cooardinates, right ascention, declination, astrinomical units (AU's), etc., swirling about in my head and the ol' brain is pretty cooked. I'm greatful for anyone takin the time to answer this stuff for me and save me the frustration of having to dig for it...thanks!

Now, as promised (LOL), the questions!

Lenses...
This first one isn't really relivant to anything other then my curiousity (which is seemingly infinate)...I've noticed that the lower the number on the lense, the larger the magnification....isn't this kind of backwards? Shouldn't a 25mm lense be -more- powerful then say a 9mm? Obviously its not, but why?

Now with that said, again my new scope only came with 2 lenses...the 25mm and 9mm. I'm heading out tomorrow to pickup a Barlow (will get to that in a sec) and will look at, maybe pickup 1 or 2 more lenses. The things I'm hoping to see at the moment are closer views of Jupiter (its just so convieneit from my location to look at right now!)...maybe even the infamous "red spot", I'd like a nice close look at Saturn and her rings, some nice close ups of the moon, etc., and then later on I'm gonna be looking further out towards the stars...gonna want to see constillations, nebula (if possible), etc.. Also, later down the road, I'm gonna be lookin to hook up my 35mm camera to the scope, but I'll burn that bridge when I get there. What lenses would you folks recommend for viewing what?

Also, does anyone know of a website or something that has a table that would convert the Xmm to that actual zoom value? I.E. what zoom is a 25mm, what zoom is a 9mm (my two of course), what zoom is a 4mm, etc., etc.. Looking for a nice table or something that I can print out.

Barlows...
I know that the Barlow's are sort of a "lense amplifier". The guy at the camera store where I bought the scope recommended a 2x Barlow and said that anything higher I would be "loosing light"...does this sound correct? What is the highest Barlow size you folks would recommend for my setup?

Filters...
Ok, I've done some amature photography over the years...both digital and 35mm and I've used filters for "effect", but what is the purpose of them with telescopes and what filters would you use for what purpose?

Polar North...
The new scope, when ever its initialized...which basically is going to be everytime I use it as I live in a very poor neighborhood and I'm not leaving it out over night...needs to be first aligned to Polar North. Does this mean the North Star/Polaris or should I be using a compass? I've looked thru the manual, but it doesn't say how to find Polar North.

Viewfinder...
This looks like its a Meade specific problem. Until I get the hang of the Autostar, I'm doing everything manually. I'm having a devil of a time getting the freakin viewfinder aligned! It only has 4 screws, 2 front, 2 back on the viewfinder mount and I'm almost thinking about drilling an extra hole in the front and the back to add an extra screw, but before I do, are there any expereienced Meade users out there that can maybe tell me if I'm missing something? On that cheap scope, I had the viewfinder aligned within a couple of minutes...I messed with this sucker for over a half an hour and was only able to get it close to center! In the owners manual, it just says, "use some or all of the alignment screws until the crosshairs are centered with the object in the main telescope"...not very useful at all and theres nothing that I could find on Meade's website...any help would be greatly apriciated before I break out the drill.

Meade...
Does anyone know of a Meade specific forum where I can maybe get some more indepth info on the scope I just bought and recommended options, Autostar info, etc.? Their website doesn't offer much in the line of "useful" info and I know that many, if not most of you are way beyond the level of equipment I'm using here.

"Bad" Astronomy...
Ok...this isn't really relivant to anything again other then my curiousity. The more I thought about this sites name last night, the more I sat there and went "HUH??". My wife did the same thing. Why is this site called "Bad" astronomy? So we can all learn from other peoples mistakes? Again, this ain't a big deal or anything...just curious :-).

Okies...I think I've bombarded ya'll enough for one night! Again, I'm sure I could find this stuff with a little diggin, but I'm truly greatful for anyone who can assisist...makes it so much more convieneint to have all the info in one place instead of speading hours and frustration digging thru websites and doing searches thru tons of old forum posts. Thankyou for your shared and collective expierience! I'm looking forward to being part of this online community and will get my user profile filled out in the next couple of days or so. I have no doubt that as I get into this more, I'm going to have more and more questions (be afraid...be -very- afraid! LOL!!!).

Bright Blessings to all!
Jim

ok...gonna post this now before the puter craps out again so please forgive any incoherent ramblings!

This is a job for....Charlie Cotterman. Come on down!

__________________
"If lightspeed has something to do with speed.
how come things can move fast in the dark?"
-James Driscoll (Spaceman), kook, imbecile, idiot.

Hang tough. Assembling the material. Answers to almost all the questions are available.

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

It takes longer to change into "TelescopeAnswerMan" than it used to.... :wink:

__________________
"If lightspeed has something to do with speed.
how come things can move fast in the dark?"
-James Driscoll (Spaceman), kook, imbecile, idiot.

While Charlie is digging up precise info, I'll take a shot at some of your questions.
The magnification is calculated by dividing the focal length of the objective lens or mirror (in your case - 1000mm) by the focal length of the eyepiece. Since the FL of the eyepiece is in the denominator, the larger the FL of the EP, the lower the power. So, a 25mm EP on your scope gives 1000/25 = 40X. The 9mm gives 1000/9 = 111X.
Use the information above and print your own.
Believe it or not, the first lens I would get is a 40mm (25X). Why? Because, as I said in the other thread, magnification is less important than light gathering power. Some of the objects you will want to look at are large. The Andromeda galaxy (M31) is 3-5 degrees across (6-10 times the size of the Moon), M42 (The great nebula in Orion) and The Pleaides (Seven Sisters) in Taurus are over a degree across. These objects look much better when they are surrounded by dark sky. Next would be one between the two you have, say 15mm. Then a 2X barlow. This set will give you 25X, 40X, 50X, 67X, 80X, 110X, 135X and 220X. Remember, as I said in the other thread, there is a limit as to how much magnification you can actually use (50X/inch of aperture). In your case this is 250X

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

The Xmm is the focal length of the lense, more or less. The lens "bends" the light, the shorter the focal length, the more the lens has bent the light. A flat piece of glass would not bend the light at all--its focal length would be at infinity. So, a smaller value would indicate a more "powerful" lens, but as Kaptain K has mentioned, power and magnification are not the most important thing.
Yes, the North Star, approximately. True north, actually. Your compass may be off from true North by ten degrees or more (or less!), that's the local declination. The North Star is not exact north either but its close. A map of your area should tell you which direction true north is, and you could figure it out from there.
The site discusses public examples of bad astronomy. Everything else is just fluff.

Dr. Phil Plait started the website this board is attached to:

www.badastronomy.com

to counter bad astronomy he found in movies, on TV and in the media. This board started as an offshoot of the website for discussion of astronomy (bad or otherwise).

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Check out Yahoo's message boards. They seem to have one for every type of scope out there. Just do a search on your model. Even if you don't find one specific for your scope, you can get great Autostar advise/info from the LX90 message board (which also uses Autostar).

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. . . My moustache is touching my brain!!!!

This site has a lot of info for the autostar. Another site, LXD55.com also has info on the autostar (the LXD series uses autostar also). If you join the site ($5) a year, you also get access to their message board where there are a couple of real experts on the autostar system. They're extremely friendly and helpful.

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

thanks for the info all!
When I was askin about sizes and such, I forgot to ask about brands! Meade brand lenses seem to be readily available in my area, but what are some other decent brands? What are the really good brands and which ones should be avoided (such as K-Marts "Focal")?

Also, one other small thing...my wife and I were debating this last night...are we actually in daylight savings time right now or is summer considered daylight savings time? I feel like an idiot...I should know this but I don't...I just wait for the folks on the news channels to say "its time to set you clock back/ahead"...DOH!

Thanks!
Jim

Summer is Daylight Savings Time. We are on Standard Time right now.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

In the United States, it is standard time now. "Spring ahead, Fall behind."

Simulpost!

There are a lot of good eyepiece brands out there (and K-Mart's "Focal" is not among them). Get the best you can afford - you've got yourself a nice scope, but it's only as good as the last piece of glass the light travels through. If money is tight, get one good eyepiece, not a bunch of cheap ones. You can add to your collection over time, and as your interests develop.

I noticed a couple of questions that hadn't been addressed yet (I think).

A 2x Barlow has the affect of doubling the scopes focal length, or halving the eyepieces focal length. Well, it gaves the same magnification, anyway.

The advantages of a Barlow are that you can essentially double the number of eyepieces you have -- as long as you avoid buying eyepieces that would give the same magnification as the Barlow with another eyepiece you already have. For example, an 18mm eyepiece with a 2x Barlow would result in the same magnification as a 9mm eyepiece with no Barlow.

Another advantage of the Barlow as that the eye relief doesn't change. One of the most popular eyepiece styles, the Plossl, has really short eye relief (you have to put your eyeball right on the glass, hard to do if you wear glasses) in the high magnifications (under 10mm or so).

A disadvantage of the Barlow is it puts more chunks of glass between you and the sky. So there might be a slight degradation in image quality.

Of course, higher magnifications result in dimmer images. That might be what the salesman was talking about.

There are several kinds of filters, all are optional and not required for visual use.

One is a moon filter, this is a filter that cuts out most of the light, and can make it more comfortable to view the moon. Some people like them, other people don't. Maybe borrow one from someone at your astronomy club.

There are also color filters, these are for viewing subtle features on planets. They usually only make very small improvements. Unless you are going to be doing a lot of visual planet observing, you can defer buying any of these.

A third type of filter is for observing nebulaes. Avoid the so-called light pollution filters, and they are pretty much worthless. The narrow band filters, however, such as Orion Ultrablock or Lumicon OIII, are very useful for observing certain nubulaes. Many times I would not have been able to see the Veil Nebula without the filter in place, for example. These filters work by blocking most wavelengths of light, and allowing only certain visible wavelengths to get through. The net result is that the nebula won't get any brighter, but the background will get darker and there will be an increase in contrast. Very nice. The different brands of these narrow band filters have slight differences in wavelengths and some are slightly better on some objects than others. But having one of them is better than none.

There are many different styles of eyepieces. Most of the expensive ones are modern widefield designs, which have very wide fields of view and/or extra eye relief in the short focal lengths. Televue is probably the best known company, but similar products are made by others.

The three older cheaper eyepiece styles, from bad to decent to good, are Huygens - Kellner - Plossl.

Another good reason to join a club, maybe some of the members will let you try some of their eyepieces.

Of course, this can be a bad thing with an eyepiece that costs more than your telescope! :P

Congratulations! I think you made a good choice. The first version of that telescope got a nice review in Sky and Telescope when it came out.

One thing to remember is the maximum maginifcaiton. You can't go over 50x per inch of aperture. For a 4.5 inch telescope, that would be 225x. Even 225x will be tought to achieve. It will only be attainable on the best of viewing nights with virtually no wind to shake the telescope. In other words, if you can't get to that magnification, you aren't missing much, so don't worry about it

A barlow is a great idea. As mentioned, it does put extra glass between you and the eyepiece. Whatever you do, DON'T GET A CHEAP BARLOW! This is no place to skimp.

As for eyepieces, don't go anything under a Plossl. Try to find something with an apparent field of view of at least 50 degrees or more (although 40mm eyepieces typically have a smaller field of view). The apparent field of view is important for seeing large patches of sky at one time. The formula is field of view = apparent field of view /magnification. So let's say you use your 25mm eyepiece and it has a 50 degree apparent field of view. That would produce 40 magnification and a 50/40 or 1.2 degree field of view.

There is a minimum magnification for each telescope, but I seriously doubt that will be an issue. By my calculations, even a 40mm eyepice (the largest you are likely to use) will not approach this minimum.

I considered this telescope. I decided to wait until my car was paid of and saved a few payments and upgraded

enjoy!

Rob

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"Crackpot theories 1 : Regular theories a billion." Fry

Thanks to everyone for taking the time...I'm gettin this all down in my note book! I'm gonna start a new thread here in a bit with tonights batch of questions! After looking at a couple of maps, it appears that the back of my house is facing due North, so that should make things a little easier!

Thanks again all!
Jim

One other thing about low power, wide field eyepieces: you can usually find what you're looking for directly through your main scope with one of these eyepieces without having to fumble around with the finder scope. On my smaller scopes, I don't even have finders, I just use low power, wide field eyepieces.

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Well, what can I say? The change into "TelescopeAnswerMan" isn't as easy as it used to be...besides, the telephone booth was in use...

While a lot of your questions were answered by others, I'll try to go through and answer all that I can. Extra opinions and extra options never hurt anyone.

Where do I come up with all this stuff? I love to read, I'm an infogeek, and I've been around long enough to make a lot of the mistakes you're being warned about.

Before we get to your specific questions, some comments on points raised by others.
Kaptain K's comment about getting a 40mm eyepiece is somewhat premature, I believe. You're just starting out. Learn to use the scope before you go for the extra goodies. Get with a few folk you can comfortably pick their brains and borrow their stuff. Check the difference in views between 40mm and 32mm eyepieces of similar design (they both should be Plossls of similar FOV). There are times when large eyepieces in smaller aperture scopes just don't give the expected increase in viewing area.
This is something you can put on the back burner for now -- let's get you outside and viewing before you spend any more money.

Again, don't be overwhelmed by all the minutiae (I love that word) of the hobby. Having the facts and figures about this/that/the other at hand may or may not add to your viewing pleasure, but if you're spending all your time becoming a walking encyclopedia, you're not looking at the stars...
Go stargaze...the trivia will come in its own good time.

The physics of this are kinda tough to explain. I can envision the diagram of it, but finding the proper words is difficult. Basically, the shorter focal length eyepiece (the 9mm -- the numbers refer to the distance over which the light is focused to a point) gathers the light into a shorter and tighter cone. (I know this is a very poor explanation. Someone with more experience with optics theory wanna take a crack at putting this into two-syllabobble English?)

The ones that came with your scope are fine. With the 2x barlow, that's gonna give you magnifications of 40x (25mm), 80x (25mm+barlow), 111x (9mm), and 222x (9mm+barlow), the latter being right on the ragged edge of your scope's max USABLE magnification. The rule of thumb is, maximum usable magnification = 2x per mm/50x per inch of aperture.