Lidl "Refractor Telescope" forum

Hello,

I recently purchased a skylux refractor scope from lidl and as a newbie am stunned at what can be seen with it.

So far I have made observations of the moon and a few nights ago saturn (wow) but have not properly used the equatoral mount as it should be. I have read up on plotting celestrial co-ords and polar aligning the scope, I think i am nearly there in my understanding of the above

However me being me I can't keep my fingers to myself and found the plastic rings (setting circles?) on the RA and Declination axis spin (with a little coaxing) on the mounts without actually moving the axis. Are they supposed to do this, or do you set them once the mount and scope is alined to the polar north?

Please forgive me for being totally clueless, but I am very eager to learn and use my scope properly.

Thanks.

Dean

Hi Brummy,
I think what you are talking about are the slow motion controls on the refractor. If you look at the photo on Seanie Morris's previous posting, at the bottom of the photo he shows a broken slow motion control!

If you find these are turning without moving the axis it is probably because the tightening screws are not doing the job properly. You can just about see one of these screws in Seanie's photo. If I remember correctly the assembly manual that comes with the scope says to handtighten these screws. However I found this to be inadequate and have used a small pliers to tighten them instead. I remember reading on a post on another forum that these screws sometimes have a point on them and that this needs to be filed off to allow them to tighten properly.

I had the same problem in the beginning but the pliers sorted it out. Remember do not use excessive force on any part of this scope, in particular any of the screws that run through the plastic sections of the scope, such as the diagonal prism for example. I have just wrecked one of the threads on the diagonal by overtightening by hand.

Hope this helps,
Regards,
Brian Seales

Hello Dean,

However me being me I can't keep my fingers to myself and found the plastic rings (setting circles?) on the RA and Declination axis spin (with a little coaxing) on the mounts without actually moving the axis. Are they supposed to do this, or do you set them once the mount and scope is alined to the polar north?

The "Setting circles", the rings with the numbers on them, are supposed to be movable but to be stiff enough to stay where they are put after adjustment, and yes you have to polar align the scope first. Once polar aligned, aim at the Pole star (which is close enough to the pole). In this position you can set the Declination setting circle to 90 degrees (either one of the two 9's on this ring).
That was the easy one, the easiest way to set the Right Ascension (RA) is to aim the 'scope at an object of known RA (preferrably an object near zero degrees in declination) and then rotate the ring to match this reading. You will have to ignore the numbers that are nearer the division (unless you are in the southern hemisphere) and use the higher ones.
Once set it is possible to point the telescope to the co-ordinated of an object that you are trying to find.
However because of the rotation of the Earth this setting will only be correct for a short while. As you rotate the axis to keep the the object in view, its RA does not change but this telescopes setting circle reeading does! More expensive telescopes solve this by having the setting circle stay fixed relative to the telescope when the motor drive is running.
Also due to the small size of the circles I have found them of limited use but did succeed to find Venus at midday last May for its occulation by the Moon.
Hope this helps some bit?

Brian,

I remember reading on a post on another forum that these screws sometimes have a point on them and that this needs to be filed off to allow them to tighten properly

The screws that I mentioned filing a flat on were the two axis locking screws, but I agree with you on the slow motion control's screws, they are always coming loose, must add a pliers to the eyepiece box.

Michael Scully, KAC, SAC

Thanks for your help, Hopefully it will be clear tuesday night so I can get out and practise using my scope properly!

Took out Denise's Skylux tonight for a 2sec glance of Jupiter just now. I'm very impressed with the scope. Although you could see a greenish cast around Jupiter, the detail on the disc was very good. I popped in my 9mm Nagler for a magnification of around 100x. Not only were the two equatorial bands visible but so too was detail within them. The GRS was also visible.
All in all, I was very surprised!