Hello Friend,

Congratulations! You got your new telescope over the holidays, and you are excited about using it
and actually may already had it out,, and perhaps you got a bit frustrated trying to use it.
If that is the case, read on and you may find some useful information here that will assist you in
getting the most out of your instrument.

1)First off, if you happened to get a "Big Box Store" telescope, based on our research, a lot of these
are quite poorly constructed and quite difficult to use. They are usually built to sell at a certain price
point, and to include lots of (read: useless) poor quality accessories. Such as eyepieces supplied with
them which are usually either plastic or poor quality. Also, the component qualities are not generally
very well made, and pointing accuracy with computerized units may be poor.
If returning the instrument is not an option, then consider for starters buying some better quality eyepieces.
Invest a bit in your eyepieces, because regardless of what instrument you own, you can always use
them if you trade up to a better telescope down the road. Good quality eyepieces never go out of style!.

That will immediately make a difference in terms of what you will be able to see through the telescope.
Remember, the eyepiece is at least 50% of the instrument! No matter how good the optics are on a telescope,
If the eyepieces are poorly made, you simply won't be able to see anything through them, and in turn you
will get frustrated. 

2) Make sure your findersccope is aligned! Most telescopes come with an auxiliary finderscope.
    It may be optical or red dot type. However, you want to make sure that it is aligned to the main
    telescope. Read your telescope manual. It will give you specifics on how to do this. Every instrument
   is differrent.

3) Always start with the lowest power eyepiece first, not the highest. This will give you a wider field of
    view so you can actually find things in the night sky.

4) Alignment stars: If you have a computerized telescope, it will ask you to align to some alignment stars.
     To a newbie, stars can look very similar. So to ensure you are lining up to the correct stars, make sure
    you purchase a planisphere or star map with the brightest  star names identified on them.
    It really does not hurt to learn the names and locations of some of the brighter stars in the sky.
    It will help you immensely in the long run,

5) Don't observe through windows; The big problem with trying to point your instrument through a glass window|
    is that because most are now double pane, the light passing through will refract and you may not get the needed
    clarity. The images will be distorted. Now, you could open the window, and observe through it, and that will work
    as long as the temperature in the room is cooled down, otherwise you will find the warm air and cold air interaction
    will cause blurry images.

6) Read the instruction manual that came with your telescope. Sometimes you will find some very useful tips in there
    that can make the difference between success and frustration.  Usually there is a troubleshooting section there too,
    and may resolve an issue you may be having.

  If you have any other useful tips, that we can pass on to others, please be sure to drop me an email  and let me know
  so we can share them.

 Until next time,

 Wishing you the clearest of skies!

 Ray Khan

 
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Khan Scope Centre
website:  http://www.khanscope.com

Local  : 416 783 4140
Toll Free Line: 1 800 580 7160

Fax: 416 352 1701

Retail Store:
3243 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario. Canada
M6A-2T2

We are Open 7 days a week-