Celestron Ultima 8, Instruction Manual

Page 1: ...8 ULTIMA 2000 INSTRUCTION MANUAL...

Page 2: ...dicated to the memory of Mark J Coco Mark will be remembered by many people for his love of Astronomy and his talent for writing He made many contributions to Celestron as our Staff Astronomer and Tec...

Page 3: ...Bracket 17 FOCUSING THE FINDERSCOPE AND RETICLE 18 ALIGNING THE FINDERSCOPE 18 ATTACHING THE VISUAL BACK 19 ATTACHING THE STAR DIAGONAL 19 ATTACHING THE EYEPIECE 19 BALANCING THE TELESCOPE 20 ADJUSTIN...

Page 4: ...on Speed OFF 61 Saving Power 62 Determining the Altitude Backlash Compensation 63 Finding 90 Declination for Polar Alignment 63 ALIGNMENT 65 SKY Two Star Alignment 65 EQ North Polar Aligned one star a...

Page 5: ...nar or small planetary nebulae 87 Imaging at f 20 Planetary or lunar 87 CHAPTER 10 TELESCOPE MAINTENANCE 90 CARE AND CLEANING OF THE OPTICS 90 COLLIMATION 90 OPTIONAL ACCESSORIES 92 APPENDIX A DATA BA...

Page 6: ...ude Clutch Adjustment knob Counterweight Finderscope Eyepiece Star Diagonal Altitude Downstop Azimuth Downstop Hand Control Focus Knob Azimuth Clutch Adjustment Rod Tube Downstop Tripod Scope to tripo...

Page 7: ...ay take a few observing sessions to become familiar with your Ultima 2000 The laminated summary sheet has a very useful diagram that will demonstrate access to the different menus of operation Also yo...

Page 8: ...act on any item that is blinking on the display screen When you turn the telescope on the first screen that appears is MENU ALIGN You will notice the A in ALIGN is blinking This indicates that you ca...

Page 9: ...uttons laid out in a diamond pattern underneath the control buttons They will be referred to as the Diamond buttons It is nice to see the telescope slew when getting familiar with the operation of the...

Page 10: ...Press ENTER Initialized the encoder downstop position for azimuth TUBE TO DOWNSTOP Press ENTER Initialized the encoder downstop position for altitude SKY ACHERNAR Press ENTER Entered into the star li...

Page 11: ...ick reference will show you how to find stars Messier objects and Planets For more information see the Section Menu Catalog in Chapter 5 ACTION NOTES DISPLAY Go to the CATALOG Menu MENU CATALOG Press...

Page 12: ...ate of 3 18 97 Press ENTER and press the UP Arrow once Change the month from Feb to March 03 17 97 Press ENTER twice and press UP once Change the date 03 18 97 Press ENTER three times 2320 066 MERCURY...

Page 13: ...s and familiarize yourself with the correct assembly procedure before attempting it outdoors Remove the tripod and telescope from their respective boxes Remove all the accessories as well Save the box...

Page 14: ...ighten the extension clamp to hold the leg in place 4 Repeat this process for each of the remaining legs You can do this while the tripod legs are still folded together Remember that the higher the tr...

Page 15: ...tripod 2 Rotate the drive base on the tripod in order to line up the three holes of the telescope drive base with the three holes of the tripod head The larger holes in the tripod head are for the ext...

Page 16: ...to the telescope then mount the finderscope in the bracket Attaching the Finderscope Bracket to the Telescope 1 Find the two holes in the rear cell of the telescope see Figure 3 4 2 Remove the tape c...

Page 17: ...3 Position the O Ring on the main body of the finder so that it is toward the front i e objective end of the finder 4 Slide the end of the finder where the eyepiece mounts into the front of the brack...

Page 18: ...is always compared to the unaided human eye So a 7 power finderscope magnifies images seven times more than the human eye To make things a little easier you should align the finderscope during the day...

Page 19: ...the desired position and tighten the thumbscrew For best results rotate the diagonal in the same position as you had it when you did your star alignment This will maintain pointing accuracy Attaching...

Page 20: ...he telescope in the horizontal position See figure 3 8 3 Hold the telescope and loosen the altitude clutch so the telescope rotates freely The altitude clutch is adjusted by turning the black knob loc...

Page 21: ...t be added in pairs one on the top of the tube and one on the bottom See Figure 3 8 Horizontal Position Vertical Position Figure 3 8 A telescope balances much like a scale You need as much weight in t...

Page 22: ...want to set the clutch as loose as possible This makes it easy for you to move the telescope by hand and also extends the battery life by creating less resistance when the telescope is slewing If you...

Page 23: ...ng down on the telescope The clutch rod allows for about 110 of motion which is more than enough motion to adjust the range of clutch tensions needed There are stops placed on the RA clutch ring This...

Page 24: ...in the through holes from the bottom side of the tripod head With the inserts in place all of the holes are threaded Now you can attach the wedge To attach the wedge to the tripod Figure 3 11 1 Place...

Page 25: ...into the slot on the top of the tilt plate 5 Tighten the bolt slightly so that the bottom of the drive base is flush to the tilt plate Do not tighten it fully or you will not be able to rotate the bas...

Page 26: ...s should be covered This will reduce the amount of dust build up on all optical surfaces and reduce the number of times you need to clean the instrument You may want to return everything to its origin...

Page 27: ...e and specify various parameters To use insert the batteries in the telescope drive base see the section Inserting the Batteries in the Assembly chapter This section gives details on all the different...

Page 28: ...gh a sub menu DOWN Used to scroll through the list of menus or through a sub menu Diamond Buttons These four buttons move the telescope If in Slewing or Finder rates the telescope will move in the dir...

Page 29: ...h E Q S outh C hange E arth S ky ALIGN M ENU Relative M anual A uto GO TO M ENU U ser Defined C atalog NE W Uppsala G eneral Catalog UG C E uropean S outhern O bservatory E S O Non S tellar Catalog NS...

Page 30: ...ACTION NOTES DISPLAY Turn On telescope and hand control The telescope always starts off in the ALIGN menu MENU ALIGN DOWN Scrolling to different items in the main menu MENU GO TO DOWN Scrolling to dif...

Page 31: ...ating that it can be edited by using the UP DOWN Buttons M 001 press UP 4 times Adjusted the second number to 4 M 041 press ENTER Accepted the value 4 and now we are able to adjust the last digit via...

Page 32: ...ows you to view the names of the stars the Ultima 2000 is aligned to You may have reason to replace one alignment star over another This mode gives you the choice An example is given in Chapter 8 EQ S...

Page 33: ...in and the information about the object will scroll across the screen If you press ENTER while the screen is scrolling the telescope will slew to the object You can also move the telescope by hand to...

Page 34: ...g selection is changed the first letter of each catalog abbreviation will blink As an example if you want to select star 55 you will need to enter the number 055 Leading zeros in a catalog number must...

Page 35: ...talog the readout will roll over and start with the first entry ST001 If you scroll through the catalog backwards once it reaches zero it will roll over to the last entry in the catalog If an erroneou...

Page 36: ...t in an RA and DEC manually Press ENTER and the default screen will read 00 00 0 Declination in degrees and minutes 24 00 00 Right Ascension in Hours Minutes and Seconds You are now ready to enter the...

Page 37: ...s pointed and one gives you information on the tracking motors Here are the choices under POSITION RA DEC This gives the right ascension and declination of the telescope RA appears on the top of the d...

Page 38: ...rving In either case the menu works the same You will need to enter two parameters when selecting an object The first parameter is the object type or catalog and the second is the magnitude range The...

Page 39: ...ed settings SLEW 10 degrees per second or faster This depends on the power source FINDER 2 degrees per second CENTER 6 x sidereal rate 2 X SDRL 2 x sidereal rate PHOTO 5 x sidereal rate Here is how to...

Page 40: ...ing Let s say it was last set to CENTER so the C is blinking SPEED CENTER while still holding the DIAMOND button press UP once The SPEED selection changes to SPEED FINDER You can change to any of the...

Page 41: ...ltmeter to give you an idea of the status of your batteries 8 5 volts is about the minimum the telescope needs to run The maximum voltage is about 18 Volts Any higher voltage is not recommended and ca...

Page 42: ...or most people it still won t be needed To change the setting see the next section ALT BACK ALT BACK For astrophotography or CCD imaging the altitude backlash compensation is critical The azimuth comp...

Page 43: ...There are times you might want this function turned off When you are looking at the RA and DEC of the telescope under the POSITION menu you might not want the screen to change when you press a diamon...

Page 44: ...orward as in reading down a list Pressing the ENTER button once you get a scrolling message with information about the object While the message is scrolling in the bottom part of the display the top p...

Page 45: ...e the GO TO function GO TO SLEWING Brightness Setting The brightness of the display can be varied by pressing the BRIGHTNESS button which is above and to the right of the readout The hand control has...

Page 46: ...d interfaces LABEL PURPOSE FOCUS This jack is for the optional focus motor 94143 To use the focus motor hold down the MENU button then press the UP or the DOWN button while still holding down the MENU...

Page 47: ...rimary mirror and a secondary mirror Once light rays enter the optical system they travel the length of the optical tube three times The optics of the Ultima 2000 has Starbright coatings an enhanced m...

Page 48: ...ar diagonal the image is inverted upside down and reversed from left to right This holds true for the 7x50 finder as well as the telescope For correct orientation through the telescope which is import...

Page 49: ...y turns about 40 to go from close focus approximately 25 feet to infinity For astronomical viewing out of focus star images are very diffuse making them difficult if not impossible to see If you turn...

Page 50: ...e the power of your telescope just by changing the eyepiece ocular To determine the magnification for the Ultima 2000 8 you would simply divide the focal length of the telescope 2032mm by the focal le...

Page 51: ...ing your telescope as a telephoto lens the split screen or microprism focuser of the 35mm SLR camera may black out This is common with all long focal length lenses If this happens use the ground glass...

Page 52: ...and seconds of arc Declination readings south of the equator carry a minus sign in front of the coordinate and those north of the celestial equator are either blank i e no designation or preceded by...

Page 53: ...will never see the stars complete one circle because the sunlight during the day washes out the starlight However part of this circular motion of stars in this region of the sky can be seen by setting...

Page 54: ...t will slowly drift out of the field This motion is caused by the Earth s rotation Since the Ultima 2000 tracks the stars in the Alt Az configuration the only time you will need to polar align the tel...

Page 55: ...ars Draw an imaginary line through them toward the Little Dipper They point to Polaris see Figure 6 4 The position of the Big Dipper changes during the year and throughout the course of the night see...

Page 56: ...or the southern hemisphere However the angle is then measured from the southern horizon If you are observing from Los Angeles which has a latitude of 34 then the celestial pole is 34 above the norther...

Page 57: ...ery close to 90 Get it as close to 90 as possible 5 Now adjust the wedge in altitude and or azimuth until Polaris is in the field of view of the finder 6 Center Polaris in the field of the telescope u...

Page 58: ...cope manually in R A and DEC to check parallelism First choose your star near where the celestial equator and the meridian meet The star should be approximately within 1 2 an hour of the meridian and...

Page 59: ...ract one hour The time is listed as a 24 hour clock i e 6 00 PM is 1800 hours etc The date circle lists the months numerically i e January is 1 February is 2 etc and there is an indicator for every fi...

Page 60: ...urn the tracking back on For an equatorially mounted telescope it is easier to align the telescope to the sky with the tracking turned ON BUTTON or ACTION NOTES DISPLAY Turn ON telescope Turn ON hand...

Page 61: ...speed SPEED FINDER While holding down the right Diamond button press the UP button This changes SPEED to PHOTO rate SPEED PHOTO Hold down the right Diamond Button and then press the left button simult...

Page 62: ...hat can be seen in the day as well as some planets Jupiter is easily seen through a telescope in the day But to do this you need to leave the telescope on all night There are some steps you can take t...

Page 63: ...ary distant object in the day or at Polaris in the night and center it in the eyepiece 3 Press the up DIAMOND button while SPEED is set at 2 X SDRL The motor will run at full speed for a brief moment...

Page 64: ...unique to each telescope All telescopes have mechanical characteristics like non perpendicularity of the two axes non parallelism of the optical axis with the mechanical axis and encoder errors The U...

Page 65: ...e encoder downstop position for altitude SKY ACHERNAR Press ENTER Select the SKY option for alignment NEW OBJ ACHERNAR Use the UP DOWN buttons to scroll through the list of alignment stars example ALT...

Page 66: ...North setting See the first section in this chapter SKY Updating Alignment Sometimes you may find it useful to update your alignment during an observing session Let s say you just slewed to M51 the W...

Page 67: ...hange and new alignment or just check to see what the alignment stars are press MENU Pressing MENU puts you back to the main menu without changing anything Don t press MENU to continue with this examp...

Page 68: ...ursor is at the A for Altair NEW OBJ ALTAIR Press ENTER Aligned to Altair and a large warp value was given in most cases NEW OBJ W Wait 5 to 10 minutes During this time the star will move due to the E...

Page 69: ...Press ENTER Aligns the altitude downstop SKY ACHERNAR Press DOWN once Scroll to the EARTH option under the ALIGN menu EARTH ACHERNAR Press MENU Return to the main menu MENU ALIGN Find an object you wo...

Page 70: ...eed to align to any two NEW objects It is important to make a note for yourself which terrestrial object is in what NEW memory position if you plan on aligning to them again later It is also important...

Page 71: ...ow when the telescope is pointed straight up parallel to the forks by using the POSITION menu Here is how to do it BUTTON or ACTION NOTES DISPLAY Set the telescope to its downstops Turn telescope and...

Page 72: ...the main menu MENU CATALOG Press UP Scroll to the GO TO menu MENU GO TO Press ENTER Enter into the GO TO menu Notice that you are still in the NAMED OBJECT CATALOG and last object is displayed AUTO A...

Page 73: ...ece to center the alignment stars Precise Pointing Relative Command This is a more accurate way of pointing the telescope but takes a little bit longer If you use the RELATIVE GO TO command the comput...

Page 74: ...a current astronomy magazine to find out when the Moon is visible Lunar Observing Hints To ensure accurate tracking be sure to select the lunar tracking rate To increase contrast and bring out detail...

Page 75: ...w surface brightness they should be observed from a dark sky location Light pollution around large urban areas washes out most nebulae making them difficult if not impossible to observe Light Pollutio...

Page 76: ...lescope hold the Ultima by the handle on the rear cell If observing with others make sure no one stands in front of or directly below the telescope tube The images produced by Type 2 seeing conditions...

Page 77: ...a few minutes the shutter closes whether you were finished with the exposure or not Look for a camera that has a manual shutter when operating in the time exposure mode Olympus Nikon Minolta Pentax Ca...

Page 78: ...T Max 400 Any 100 to 400 ISO color slide film Fuji Super HG 400 Ektar 25 or 100 2 Center the Moon in the field of your Ultima Telescope 3 Focus the telescope by turning the focus knob until the image...

Page 79: ...y objects 1 Polar align the telescope using one of the methods described earlier and start the clock drive 2 Load your camera with slide or print film ISO 400 or faster 3 Attach the camera with a norm...

Page 80: ...r 93643 which attaches to the visual back and a T ring for your particular camera make i e Minolta Nikon Pentax etc Because of the high magnifications during eyepiece projection the field of view is q...

Page 81: ...times listed here should be used as a starting point Always make exposures that are longer and shorter than the recommended time Also take a few photos at each shutter speed This will ensure that you...

Page 82: ...and a T Ring for your specific camera However the best method for long exposure deep sky astrophotography is with an off axis guider This device allows you to photograph and guide through the telescop...

Page 83: ...color print T Max 3200 black and white print Konica 3200 color print T Max 400 black and white print Fujichrome 1600D color slide 3M 1000 color slide As you perfect your technique try specialized film...

Page 84: ...ucer corrector f 10 and f 20 with the optional 2x barlow making it one of the most versatile imaging systems available today This makes the system ideal for imaging deep sky objects as well as planeta...

Page 85: ...F goes down or gets faster the exposure times needed decreases the field of view increases but the image scale of the object gets smaller What is the difference between f 1 95 and f 10 F 1 95 has 1 5...

Page 86: ...Whirlpool galaxy Figure 9 6 can be captured with a 30 second exposure and can be improved upon dramatically if several 30 60 second exposures are added together using the Track and Accumulate feature...

Page 87: ...t 30 50 seconds at f 10 The longer the exposure the better Imaging at f 20 Planetary or lunar f 20 is a great way to image the planets and features on the moon With the PixCel CCD camera and optional...

Page 88: ...ssembly 15 T Adapter 5 Tricolor Spacer Ring 16 Cross Hair Eyepiece 6 T 1 Adapter 17 Visual Back 1 7 IR Cutoff Filter for use with Color Filter 18 Star Diagonal 8 PixCel CCD Camera 19 26mm Plossl Eyepi...

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Page 90: ...pe during an observing session If you want to continue observing the dew must be removed either with a hair dryer or by pointing the telescope at the ground until the dew has evaporated If moisture co...

Page 91: ...the secondary collimation screw s that move the star across the field toward the direction of the skewed light These screws are located in the secondary mirror holder Make only a small 1 6 to 1 8 fie...

Page 92: ...rs the Car Battery Adapter which allows you to run the Ultima 2000 off an external 12 VDC power source The adapter attaches to the cigarette lighter plug of your car Collimated Barlow Diagonal 90 11 4...

Page 93: ...le of exposure times 25 times shorter than at f 10 Flashlight Red Astro Lite 93590 A disposable red flashlight with a removable red filter This can be used as a red light for astronomy or as a regular...

Page 94: ...e of guiding produces the best results since what you see through the guiding eyepiece is exactly reproduced on the processed film The Radial guider is a T shaped assembly that attaches to the rear ce...

Page 95: ...633 A A T Adapter with T Ring allows you to attach your camera to the prime focus of a Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain telescope This is used for terrestrial photography and short exposure lunar and filt...

Page 96: ...1 star red Canopus alpha Car 62357 1 52 41 44 0 7 star Capella alpha Aur 5 16 41 3 45 59 53 0 1 star Castor alpha Gem 7 34 35 9 31 53 18 1 6 dbl Deneb alpha Cyg 20 41 25 8 45 16 49 1 3 star Denebola...

Page 97: ...ardalis HER Hercules RET Reticulum CAP Capricomus HOR Horologium SCL Sculptor CAR Carina HYA Hydra SCO Scorpius CAS Cassiopeia HYI Hydrus SCT Scutum CEN Centaurus IND Indus SER Serpens CEP Cepheus LAC...

Page 98: ...Planetary Nebula HELIX NE Helix Nebula NGC7293 Planetary Nebula HERCULES Hercules Cluster M013 Globular Cluster HUBBLES Hubbles Variable NGC2261 Nebula LAGOON N Lagoon Nebula M008 Nebula NORTH AM Nor...

Page 99: ...een wire to pin 2 Yellow wire to pin 3 Red wire to pin 7 Black wire to pin 8 Depending on the configuration of the serial interface on the PC it may be necessary to get an RS 232 wiring box and attach...

Page 100: ...e alt and az axes The values are in hexadecimal The displayed value x indicates that the telescope is moving at a rate of x 65536 tracking encoder ticks per millisecond There are eight tracking ticks...

Page 101: ...erous command the telescope depends on having alt 0 when the tube is perpendicular to the fork arms If this is not true it will invalidate the computation of RA and DEC S is the command followed by th...

Page 102: ...e side Optical Quality Crown Glass 190 A R Coatings both sides Highest Useful Magnification 480x 4mm eyepiece Lowest Useful Magnification 7mm exit pupil 29x 70mm eyepiece 44mm eyepiece with optional R...

Page 103: ...e Pitch Diameter Final Gear Ratio 288 teeth 48 pitch 6 00 inches 2000 1 ALT Slewing Gear Number of Teeth Type Pitch Diameter Final Gear Ratio 240 teeth 48 pitch 5 00 inches 1663 1 Time for AZM worm to...

Page 104: ...d Box Accessory Box 21 x 15 x 30 18 x 16 x 37 12 x 8 x 4 Shipping Weights Telescope Accessories Tripod 53 Lbs 5 Lbs 26 Lbs Electronic Specifications Input Voltage Maximum Minimum 12 VDC Nominal 18 VDC...

Page 105: ...onding Button 1 West Right 2 South Up 3 North Down 4 East Left 5 Common 6 Not Used All the pins are normally open To get the telescope to guide at photo rate in any particular direction the autoguider...

Page 106: ...to make corrections about every 5 seconds this should allow for best results Viewing near the zenith in Alt Az Altazimuth tracking requires motors on both axis to move at varying rates The rates are d...

Page 107: ...ven if they are not yet in the sky The Ultima 2000 can still point to them If you see the telescope slew just below the horizon to the East you know the object is going to rise shortly If you want to...

Page 108: ...nt in altitude up down and azimuth left right It is the simplest type of telescope mounting but it requires movement of both axes in order to track the motion of the stars For that reason it was not a...

Page 109: ...d onto the sky Used with Right Ascension an objects location can be defined The system of RA and DEC is referred to as the Celestial Coordinate System Diamond Buttons Refers to the four directional bu...

Page 110: ...ian starts from your Southern horizon and passes directly overhead to the North celestial pole Messier Messier was a French astronomer in the late 1700 s who was primarily looking for comets Comets ar...

Page 111: ...time the telescope is moving at greater or less than sidereal rate such that an object in the eyepiece can noticeable be seen to move rapidly For a telescope tracking at sidereal rate an object in th...

Page 112: ...ember 10 00 PM Late December 9 00 PM Early January 8 00 PM Late January Dusk This means that the sky that the January map shows is up in early December at 10 00 PM and in early January at 8 00 PM The...

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Page 119: ...d repair Further product malfunction or deterioration due to normal wear is not covered by this warranty CI DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WHETHER OF MERCHANTABILITY OF FITNESS FOR A PART...

Page 120: ...35 Columbia Street Torrance CA 90503 Tel 310 328 9560 Fax 310 212 5835 Copyright 1997 Celestron International All rights reserved Products or instructions may change without notice or obligation Item...

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