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The Moon: A veritable treasury of craters, mountain ranges and fault lines. The best contrast for
viewing the Moon is during its crescent phase. The contrast during the full Moon phase is low due to
the angle of illumination.
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Deep-Space: Nebulae, galaxies, multiple star systems, star clusters–hundreds of such objects are
visible through the Meade 114 EQ-ASB.
USING SETTING CIRCLES
Setting circles of the polar aligned equatorial mount can facilitate the location of faint celestial objects not
easily found by direct visual observation. To use the setting circles, follow this procedure:
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Use a star chart or star atlas, and look up the celestial coordinates, Right Ascension and Declination
(R.A. and Dec.), of an easy-to-find bright star that is within the general vicinity of the faint object you
wish to locate.
•
Center the determined bright star in the telescope’s field of view.
•
Manually turn the R.A. setting circle (
27, Fig. 1c) to read the R.A. of the object now in the telescope’s
eyepiece.
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The setting circles are now calibrated (the Dec. setting circle (
28, Fig. 1c) is factory calibrated). To
locate a nearby faint object using the setting circles determine the faint object’s celestial coordinates
from a star chart, and move the telescope in R.A. and Declination until the setting circles read the R.A.
and Dec. of the object you are attempting to locate. If the above procedure has been carefully
performed, the faint object will now be in the field of a low power eyepiece.
•
The R.A. Setting Circle must be manually re-calibrated on the current Right Ascension of a star every
time the telescope is set up, and reset to the centered object’s R.A. coordinate before moving to a new
R.A. coordinate setting. The R.A. Setting Circle has two sets of numbers, the inner set is for Southern
hemisphere use while the outer set of numbers (the set closest to the R.A. gear), is for use by
observers located North of the Earth’s equator (e.g., in North America).
CALCULATING POWER
The power, or magnification of the telescope depends on two optical characteristics: the focal length of the
main telescope and the focal length of the eyepiece used during a particular observation. For example, the
focal length of the Meade 114 EQ-ASB telescope is fixed at 1000mm. To calculate the power in use with a
particular eyepiece, divide the focal length of the eyepiece into the focal length of the main telescope. For
example, using the 25mm eyepiece supplied with the Meade 114 EQ-ASB, the power is calculated as
follows:
Power = 1000mm ÷ 25mm = 40X
The supplied 2X Barlow lens doubles the power of each eyepiece. Insert the 2X Barlow lens into the the
eyepiece holder (
17, Fig. 1b), followed by the eyepiece, and secure by tightening the respective
thumbscrews. For example, the 25mm (40X) eyepiece, when used with the 2X Barlow Lens, yields 80X.
The 9mm (1000 ÷ 9 = 111X) eyepiece, when used with the 2X Barlow Lens, yields 222X.
Meade Instruments manufactures several types of eyepiece designs that are available for your telescope.
The type of eyepiece (“MA”or “MH”) has no bearing on magnifying power but does affect such optical
characteristics as field of view, flatness of field, eye relief and color correction.
The maximum practical magnification is determined by the nature of the object being observed and, most
importantly, by the prevailing atmospheric conditions. Under very steady atmospheric “seeing,” the Meade
114 EQ-ASB may be used at powers up to about 225x on astronomical objects. Generally, however, lower
powers of perhaps 75x to 175x will present the best images consistent with high image resolution. When
unsteady air conditions prevail (as witnessed by rapid “twinkling” of the stars), extremely high-power
eyepieces result in poor magnification, where the object detail observed is actually reduced by the
excessive power.
