Celestron CPC Series Instruction Manual
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Celestron CPC Series Instruction Manual

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Summary of Contents for Celestron CPC Series

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    INTRODUCTION... 4 ... 4 ARNING ASSEMBLY... 6 CPC ... 6 SSEMBLING THE Setting up the Tripod ... 6 Adjusting the Tripod Height ... 7 Attaching the CPC to the Tripod ... 7 Adjusting the Clutches... 8 The Star Diagonal ... 8 The Eyepiece ...
  • Page 3 TELESCOPE BASICS ... 27 Image Orientation ... 27 Focusing... 27 Calculating Magnification ... 28 Determining Field of View ... 28 General Observing Hints... 28 ASTRONOMY BASICS ... 30 The Celestial Coordinate System... 30 Motion of the Stars ... 31 Polar Alignment (with optional Wedge) ... 32 Wedge Align ...

  • Page 4: Introduction

    Congratulations on your purchase of the Celestron CPC telescope! The CPC GPS ushers in the next generation of computer automated telescopes. The CPC series uses GPS (Global Positioning System) technology to take the guesswork and effort out of aligning and finding celestial objects in the sky. Simple and easy to use, the CPC with its on-board GPS, is up and running after locating just three celestial objects.
  • Page 5 The CPC comes completely pre-assembled and can be operational in a matter of minutes. The CPC and its accessories are Figure 2 – The CPC Series conveniently packaged in one reusable shipping carton while the tripod comes in its own box. Included with your CPC are...

  • Page 6: Assembly

    Start by removing the telescope and tripod from their shipping cartons and set the telescopes round base on a sturdy flat surface. Always carry the telescope by holding it from the lower portion of the fork arm on the hand control side and from the handle on the opposite side.

  • Page 7: Adjusting The Tripod Height

    The tripod that comes with your CPC telescope is adjustable. There is a bubble level located on the top of the tripod head to assist you in leveling the tripod. To adjust the height at which the tripod stands: Tripod Head...

  • Page 8: Adjusting The Clutches

    Rotate the telescope base on the tripod head until the three feet on the bottom of the base fall into the feet recesses on the top of the tripod head. Thread the three attached mounting bolts from underneath the tripod head into the bottom of the telescope base. Tighten all three bolts.

  • Page 9: The Eyepiece

    Find the two holes in the rear cell of the telescope on the top left, when looking from the back of the tube. Place the mounting bracket over the two holes of the rear cell as shown in the figure 3-7.

  • Page 10: Aligning The Finderscope

    In order to protect your CPC telescope during shipping, the hand control unit has been packaged along with the other telescope accessories and will need to be plugged in to the drive base of your telescope. The hand control cable has a phone jack style connector that will plug into the designated jack outlet located on the top of the drive base (see figure 3-10).

  • Page 11: Powering The Cpc

    The CPC can be powered by the supplied 12v car battery adapter or optional power supply (see Optional Accessories section in the back of this manual). To power the CPC with the car battery adapter, simply plug the round post into the designated 12v power outlet located on the drive base.

  • Page 12: Hand Control

    The CPC is controlled by Celestron’s NexStar hand controller designed to give you instant access to all the functions the CPC has to offer. With automatic slewing to over 40,000 objects, and common sense menu descriptions, even a beginner can master its variety of features in just a few observing sessions. Below is a brief description of the individual components of the CPC’s NexStar hand controller:...

  • Page 13: Hand Control Operation

    "Altazimuth" or "Alt-Az" refers to a type of mounting that allows a telescope to move in both altitude (up and down) and azimuth (left and right) with respect to the ground. This is the simplest form of mounting in which the telescope is attached directly to a tripod without the use of an equatorial wedge.
  • Page 14 You may even select a planet or the moon. The CPC is then ready to start finding and tracking any of the objects in its 40,000+ object database. Before the telescope is ready to be aligned, it should be set up in an outside location with all accessories (eyepiece, diagonal and finderscope) attached and lens cover removed as described in the Assembly section of the manual.

  • Page 15: Auto Two-Star Align

    As with Sky Align, Auto Two-Star Align downloads all the necessary time/site information from orbiting GPS satellites. Once this information is received, CPC will prompt you to slew the telescope and point at one known star in the sky. The CPC now has all the information it needs to automatically choose a second star that will assure the best possible alignment.

  • Page 16: Two Star Alignment

    Solar System Align is designed to provide excellent tracking and GoTo performance by using solar system objects (Sun, Moon and planets) to align the telescope with the sky. Solar System Align is a great way to align your telescope for daytime viewing as well as a quick way to align the telescope for night time observing.

  • Page 17: Eq North / Eq South Alignment

    The EQ AutoAlign uses all the same time/site information as the Alt-Az alignments, however it also requires you to position the tube so that the altitude index markers are aligned (see figure 4-2), and then rotate the telescope base until the tube is pointed towards the Meridian (see figure 4-3).

  • Page 18: Cpc Re-Alignment

    Meridian, but it does require the user to locate and align the telescope on two bright stars. When selecting alignment stars it is best to choose stars that, a) have a large separation in azimuth and b) both are either positive or negative in declination.

  • Page 19: Slewing To An Object

    UNDO to go back and select a new object. Press ENTER to ignore the message and continue the slew. Object information can be obtained without having to do a star alignment. After the telescope is powered on, pressing any of the catalog keys allows you to scroll through object lists or enter catalog numbers and view the information about the object as described above.

  • Page 20: Constellation Tour

    In addition to the Tour Mode, the CPC telescope has a Constellation Tour that allows the user to take a tour of all the best objects within a particular constellation. Selecting Constellation from the LIST menu will display all the constellation names that are above the user defined horizon (filter limits).

  • Page 21: Tracking Rate

    The CPC stores celestial objects to its database by saving its right ascension and declination in the sky. This way the same object can be found each time the telescope is aligned. Once a desired object is centered in the eyepiece, simply scroll to the "Save Sky Obj" command and press ENTER.

  • Page 22: Get Ra/Dec

    The hand control then calculates the small difference between its goto position and its centered position. Using this offset, the telescope will then slew to the desired object with enhanced accuracy.

  • Page 23: Scope Setup Features

    To set the slew limit so that the telescope will slew to the horizon while on a wedge, you must set the minimum slew limit to equal your latitude minus 90°.

  • Page 24: Direction Buttons

    – Cord wrap safeguards against the telescope slewing more than 360º in azimuth and wrapping accessory cables around the base of the telescope. This is useful when autoguiding or any time that cables are plugged into the base of the telescope. By default, the cord wrap feature is turned off when the telescope is aligned in altazimuth and turn on when aligned on a wedge.

  • Page 25: Get Alt-Az

    Power off the telescope. Remember to never move your telescope manually while in Hibernate mode. Once the telescope is powered on again the display will read Wake Up. After pressing Enter you have the option of scrolling through the time/site information to confirm the current setting. Press ENTER to wake up the telescope.
  • Page 26 CPC Ready MENU ALIGNMENT TRACKING SKY ALIGN MODE GPS LINKING... Center Alignment Object 1 ALT-AZ EQ NORTH EQ SOUTH RATE AUTO TWO-STAR ALIGN SIDEREAL SOLAR GPS LINKING... LUNAR VIEW TIME-SITE Select Star 1 SCOPE SETUP SETUP TIME-SITE Center Star 2 ANTI-BACKLASH TWO-STAR ALIGNMENT SLEW LIMITS...

  • Page 27: Telescope Basics

    The CPC's focusing mechanism controls the primary mirror which is mounted on a ring that slides back and forth on the primary baffle tube. The focusing knob, which moves the primary mirror, is on the rear cell of the telescope just below the star diagonal and eyepiece.

  • Page 28: Calculating Magnification

    60 gives a maximum useful magnification of 480 power. Although this is the maximum useful magnification, most observing is done in the range of 20 to 35 power for every inch of aperture which is 160 to 280 times for the CPC 8 telescope.
  • Page 29 If you wear corrective lenses (specifically glasses), you may want to remove them when observing with an eyepiece attached to the telescope. When using a camera, however, you should always wear corrective lenses to ensure the sharpest possible focus. If you have astigmatism, corrective lenses must be worn at all times.

  • Page 30: Astronomy Basics

    Up to this point, this manual covered the assembly and basic operation of your CPC telescope. However, to understand your telescope more thoroughly, you need to know a little about the night sky. This section deals with observational astronomy in general and includes information on the night sky and polar alignment.

  • Page 31: Motion Of The Stars

    The daily motion of the Sun across the sky is familiar to even the most casual observer. This daily trek is not the Sun moving as early astronomers thought, but the result of the Earth's rotation. The Earth's rotation also causes the stars to do the same, scribing out a large circle as the Earth completes one rotation.

  • Page 32: Polar Alignment (With Optional Wedge)

    EQ alignment methods. Follow these steps to Wedge Align the CPC in the Northern Hemisphere: With the telescope set up on an optional equatorial wedge and roughly positioned towards Polaris, align the CPC using either the EQ AutoAlign or Two-Star Alignment method.

  • Page 33: Declination Drift Method Of Polar Alignment

    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 within five degrees of the celestial equator. Center the star in the field of your telescope and monitor the drift in declination.
  • Page 34 So, repeat the process again to improve the accuracy checking both axes for minimal drift. Once the drift has been eliminated, the telescope is very accurately aligned. You can now do prime focus deep-sky astrophotography for long periods.

  • Page 35: Celestial Observing

    With your telescope set up, you are ready to use it for observing. This section covers visual observing hints for both solar system and deep sky objects as well as general observing conditions which will affect your ability to observe.

  • Page 36: Observing The Sun

    The best time to observe the Sun is in the early morning or late afternoon when the air is cooler. • To center the Sun without looking into the eyepiece, watch the shadow of the telescope tube until it forms a circular shadow.

  • Page 37: Seeing

    Seeing conditions refers to the stability of the atmosphere and directly affects the amount of fine detail seen in extended objects. The air in our atmosphere acts as a lens which bends and distorts incoming light rays. The amount of bending depends on air density.

  • Page 38: Celestial Photography

    Short exposure prime focus photography is the best way to begin recording celestial objects. It is done with the camera attached to the telescope without an eyepiece or camera lens in place. To attach your camera you need the Celestron T-Adapter (#93633-A) and a T-Ring for your specific camera (i.e., Minolta, Nikon, Pentax, etc.).

  • Page 39: Eyepiece Projection

    Because of the high magnifications during eyepiece projection, the field of view is quite small which makes it difficult to find and center objects. To make the job a little easier, align the finder as accurately as possible. This allows you to get the object in the telescope's field based on the finder's view alone.

  • Page 40: Long Exposure Prime Focus Photography

    To accomplish this you need a guiding ocular with an illuminated reticle to monitor your guide star. For this purpose, Celestron offers the Micro Guide Eyepiece (#94171) Here is a brief summary of the technique.

  • Page 41: Periodic Error Correction (Pec)

    Hint Once the worm gear is indexed, it will not need to be positioned again until the telescope is turned-off. So, to give yourself more time to prepare for guiding, it is best to restart PEC recording after the worm gear has found its index.

  • Page 42: Terrestrial Photography

    Always take exposures of various lengths to determine the best exposure time. Your CPC makes an excellent telephoto lens for terrestrial (land) photography. Terrestrial photography is best done will the telescope in Alt-Az configuration and the tracking drive turned off. To turn the tracking drive off, press the MENU (9) button on the hand control and scroll down to the Tracking Mode sub menu.

  • Page 43: Auto Guiding

    Lunar or small planetary nebulae-- f/10 imaging is more challenging for long exposure, deep-sky imaging. Guiding needs to be very accurate and the exposure times need to be much longer, about 25 times longer than f/2. There are only a select few objects that work well at f/10. The moon images fine because it is so bright, but planets are still a bit small and should be shot at f/20.

  • Page 44: Telescope Maintenance

    This will prevent contaminants from entering the optical tube. Internal adjustments and cleaning should be done only by the Celestron repair department. If your telescope is in need of internal cleaning, please call the factory for a return authorization number and price quote.
  • Page 45 (see figure 9-2). Center the de-focused star and notice in which direction the central shadow is skewed. Place your finger along the edge of the front cell of the telescope (be careful not to touch the corrector plate), pointing towards the collimation screws.

  • Page 46: Optional Accessories

    Barlow Lens - A Barlow lens is a negative lens that increases the focal length of a telescope. Used with any eyepiece, it doubles the magnification of that eyepiece. Celestron offers two Barlow lens in the 1-1/4" size for the CPC. The 2x Ultima Barlow (#93506) is a compact triplet design that is fully multicoated for maximum light transmission and parfocal when used with the Ultima eyepieces.
  • Page 47 Skylight Filter (#93621) - The Skylight Filter is used on the Celestron CPC telescope as a dust seal. The filter threads onto the rear cell of your telescope. All other accessories, both visual and photographic (with the exception of Barlow lenses), thread onto the skylight filter.

  • Page 48: Appendix A - Technical Specifications

    Light Gathering Power Near Focus w/ standard eyepiece or camera Field of View: Standard Eyepiece : 35mm Camera Linear Field of View (at 1000 yds) Optical Tube Length Weight of Telescope Weight of Tripod Electronic Specifications Input Voltage Maximum Minimum...

  • Page 49: Appendix B - Glossary Of Terms

    Sun against the stars". Equatorial mount A telescope mounting in which the instrument is set upon an axis which is parallel to the axis of the Earth; the angle of the axis must be equal to the observer's latitude.
  • Page 50 1 and those increasingly fainter from 2 down to magnitude 5. The faintest star that can be seen without a telescope is about magnitude 6. Each magnitude step corresponds to a ratio of 2.5 in brightness. Thus a star of magnitude 1 is 2.5 times brighter than a star of magnitude 2, and 100 times brighter than a magnitude 5 star.
  • Page 51 The rate is 15 arc seconds per second or 15 degrees per hour. Terminator The boundary line between the light and dark portion of the moon or a planet. Universe The totality of astronomical things, events, relations and energies capable of being described objectively.

  • Page 52: Appendix C - Longitudes And Latitudes

    LONGITUDE LATITUDE degrees degrees ALABAMA Anniston 34.8 Auburn 26.4 40.2 Birmingham 34.2 Centreville Dothan 19.2 Fort Rucker 43.2 16.8 Gadsden 58.2 Huntsville 46.2 Maxwell AFB 22.2 22.8 Mobile 40.8 Mobile Aeros 37.8 Montgomery Muscle Shoal 37.2 Selma 59.4 20.4 Troy 52.2 Tuscaloosa 37.2...
  • Page 53 LONGITUDE LATITUDE degrees degrees Melbourne 37.8 Miami 16.8 49.2 Naples Nasa Shuttle 40.8 37.2 Orlando 19.2 25.8 Panama City 40.8 Patrick AFB 13.8 Pensacola 19.2 Ruskin 58.2 Saint Peters 40.8 55.2 Sanford 46.8 Sarasota Tallahassee 22.2 22.8 Tampa Intl 31.8 58.2 Titusville 31.2...
  • Page 54 LONGITUDE LATITUDE degrees degrees Wurtsmith Ypsilanti 31.8 13.8 MINNESOTA Albert Lea 22.2 40.8 Alexandria 22.8 52.2 Bemidji Muni 55.8 Brainerd-Crw Detroit Laks 52.8 49.2 Duluth 10.8 49.8 49.2 Fairmont 25.2 Fergus Falls Grand Rapids 31.2 13.2 Hibbing 22.8 Intl Falls 22.8 34.2 Litchfield...
  • Page 55 LONGITUDE LATITUDE degrees degrees OKLAHOMA Altus AFB 16.2 40.2 Ardmore Bartlesville Clinton Enid 22.8 Fort Sill Gage 46.2 Hobart Lawton 25.2 34.2 Mcalester 46.8 52.8 Norman 28.2 13.8 Oklahoma Page 37.2 40.8 Ponca City 43.8 Stillwater Tinker AFB 22.8 25.2 Tulsa Vance AFB 55.2...
  • Page 56 LONGITUDE LATITUDE degrees degrees Walla Walla 16.8 Wenatchee Whidbey Is Yakima 31.8 WEST VIRGINIA Beckley Bluefield 13.2 Charleston Clarksburg 13.8 Elkins Huntington Lewisburg Martinsburg 58.8 Morgantown 55.2 Parkersburg 25.8 Wheeling Wh Sulphur CITY PROVINCE LONGITUDE Calgary Alberta Churchill Newfoundland Coppermine Northwest Terr.

  • Page 57: Appendix D - Rs-232 Connection

    RS-232 cable (#93920). For information about using NexRemote to control your telescope, refer to the instruction sheet that came with the NexRemote CD and the help files located on the disk. In addition to NexRemote, the CPC can be controlled using other popular astronomy software programs.

  • Page 58: Appendix E - Time Zone Map

    APPENDIX E – MAPS OF TIME ZONES...

  • Page 66: Observational Data Sheet

    Observational Data Sheet Yearly Meteor Showers Shower Quadrantids Lyrids pi-Puppids eta-Aquarids June Bootids July Phoenicids Southern delta-Aquarids Perseids alpha-Aurigids Draconids Orionids Leonids alpha-Monocerotids Phoenicids Puppid-Velids Geminids Ursids * These meteor showers have the potential of becoming meteor storms with displays of thousands of meteors per hour. Solar Eclipses in North America plus Total Eclipses Around the World Date Eclipse Type...
  • Page 67 Celestron, is found to be defective in materials or workmanship. As a condition to the obligation of Celestron to repair or replace such product, the product must be returned to Celestron together with proof-of-purchase satisfactory to Celestron.
  • Page 68 Celestron 2835 Columbia Street Torrance, CA 90503 Tel. (310) 328-9560 Fax. (310) 212-5835 Web site at http//www.celestron.com Copyright 2005 Celestron All rights reserved. (Products or instructions may change without notice or obligation.) INST Item # 11073- $10.00 04-05...

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Cpc 80011073Cpc 92511074Cpc 110011075

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