Telescopes are some of the most fun scientific devices ever created. It is amazing what you can discover hidden in the night sky when you understand how to properly employ one of these. We will walk through the use of a basic telescope without getting into the more honerous details of tracking your moving target in the sky.
Choose your location
Before viewing the night sky, you must choose a suitable location. Even a backyard in the city will work, but your view will not be as pristine as if you find a remote area far from the city lights. The darker the surrounding area, the better you will be able to see faint objects. If you are merely interested in looking at the moon, however, the back porch is perfect.
Equipment stabilization
The optics in a telescope are delicate instruments, and they will subtely change as their temperature changes. If you are taking your telescope from the warm house into the cold night air, you need to allow about 30 minutes for the optics to stabilize in order to get the clearest picture possible. Larger telescopes may require more time to become completely stable.
Viewfinder
Most telescopes come with a view finder. This is a low powered spotting scope that is use to provide a coarse alignment for the main lens in the scope. You want to ensure that this is properly aligned so that it provides a useful reference. This can be accomplished by finding a large target, such as the full moon, using the telescope and then adjusting the view finder to have a matching image. Then, when you see a smaller target you are interested in you can utilize the view finder to get pointed in the right direction.
Objective Lenses
Most telescopes will come with a variety of objective lenses. Start off with the lowest powered lens first, as this will make it easier for you to find your object of interest. The “lowest powered” means the one with the highest number, and this will often be 30 or 40 mm. After you find your target object and have it completely centered you can switch out to a more powerful objective lens to get a closer look.
Coarse and Fine Adjust
Most telescope mounts have knobs for adjusting the position of the telescope in both coarse and fine settings. The coarse setting is used to get yourself pointed in the proper direction, and then the fine adjust is for getting the object completely centered. These can also be used to track the object, as the world is continuing to rotate despite your desire to look at distant galaxies. The method of tracking depends on the type of telescope mount you have.
By following these tips you should be able to successfully get your telescope out of the house and doing something desirable. There are many books available that provide a very in-depth look at the operation of all types of telescopes, and if you are becoming serious about sky watching you should search these out.
