Meade 114EQ-ASTR Instruction Manual page 14

Meade114EQASTR 3/28/07 9:33 AM
grouping of stars, containing millions
or even billions of stars. Some galaxies
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form a spiral (like our galaxy, the Milky
Way) and other galaxies look more like
a large football and are called elliptical
galaxies. There are many galaxies that are
irregularly shaped and are thought to have
been pulled apart because they passed too
close to—or even through—a larger galaxy.
You may be able to see the Andromeda
galaxy and several others in your telescope.
They will appear as small, fuzzy clouds. Only
very large telescope will reveal spiral or
elliptical details.
The Sun is gigantic. It would take
109 earths side-by-side to make up
the diameter of the sun, and 1.3
million Earth's to fill its volume.
Yet, due to distance, the Sun
looks exactly the same
size as the moon in
our sky.
Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving.
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You will also be able to see some nebulas
with your scope. Nebula means cloud. Most
nebulas are clouds of gas. The two easiest to
see in the Northern Hemisphere are the
Orion nebula during the winter and the
Triffid nebula during the summer. These are
large clouds of gas in which new stars are
being born. Some nebulas are the remains
of stars exploding. These explosions are
called supernovas.
When you become an advanced observer you
can look for other types of objects such as
asteroids, planetary nebula and globular
clusters. And if you're lucky, every so often a
bright comet appears in the sky, presenting
an unforgettable sight.
The more you learn about objects in the
sky, the more you will learn to appreciate
the sights you see in your telescope. Start
a notebook and write down the observations
you make each night. Note the time and
the date.
Use a compass to make a circle, or trace
around the lid of a jar. Draw what you see in
your eyepiece inside the circle. The best
exercise for drawing is to observe the moons
Fig. 9
barlow
eyepiece
of Jupiter every night or so. Try to make
Jupiter and the moons approximately the
same size as they look in your eyepiece. You
will see that the moons are in a different
position every night. As you get better at
drawing, try more challenging sights, like a
crater system on the moon or even a nebula.
Go your library or check out the internet for
more information about astronomy. Learn
about the basics: light years, orbits, star
colors, how stars and planets are formed,
red shift, the big bang, what are the different
kinds of nebula, what are comets, asteroids
and meteors and what is a black hole. The
more you learn about astronomy, the more