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MEADE INSTRUCTION MANUAL
70mm | 2.75" Altazimuth Refracting Telescope
RB-70
Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversable 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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WARNING! ® Never use a Meade Telescope to look at the Sun! Looking at or near the Sun will cause instant and irreversible damage to your eye. Eye damage is often painless, so there is no warning to the observer that damage has occurred until it is too late. Do not point the telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look ™ through the telescope or SmartFinder as it is moving. Children should always have adult supervision while observing.
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INTRODUCTION Your telescope is an excellent beginner’s Setting up your telescope involves these 1 instrument, and is designed to observe simple steps: objects in the sky and also on land. It can be • Assemble your tripod your personal window on the universe or • Attach the accessory tray allows you to intimately study the behavior of • Attach the optical tube to the mount nesting birds on a distant hillside. • Attach the red dot viewfinder • Attach the diagonal mirror and eyepiece The tele
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Inset A Figure 1: Meade 70-RB Altazimuth Refracting Telescope FIGURE 1 Inset A: Red Dot Viewfinder Assembly 2 Inset B: Tripod Legs and Accessory Tray Inset C: Altaz or Azimuth Mount 1. Eyepiece 2. Red dot viewfinder (see Inset A) 3. Red dot viewfinder alignment screws (see Inset A) 4. Optical tube assembly 5. Vertical locking lever Inset B 6. Horizontal lock knob 7. Tripod legs 8. Leg brace supports (See Inset C) 9. Leg brace (See Inset C) 10. Mount base attachment 11. Optical tube
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Fig. 2 ATTACH THE RED DOT VIEWFINDER ASSEMBLE YOUR TRIPOD An eyepiece (1) has a narrow field of The tripod is the basic support for your 3 view. A viewfinder (2) has a wider telescope. Its height may be adjusted so field of view, which makes it easier to that you can view comfortably. locate objects. The red dot viewfinder Note: Number in brackets, e.g., (3), refer has a red dot to make it easier to line up to Fig. 1. more precisely with a target. 1. Spread the legs out e
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2.Tighten the drawtube thumbscrew alignment screws to make any necessary THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE to hold the diagonal mirror securely. refinements. We have one very important rule that you 4 3.Slide the SP 26mm eyepiece (1) into should always follow when using your TO MOVE THE TELESCOPE diagonal mirror (13). telescope: Your telescope is altazimuth mounted. 4.Tighten the diagonal mirror Altazimuth is just a complicated way of thumbscrew (26) to hold the eyepiece Have Fun! saying t
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SUN WARNING have aligned your viewfinder, you will stars and planets. Read about NEVER USE YOUR TELESCOPE you see the object in your eyepiece. astronomers of old. Many of them had 5 TO LOOK AT THE SUN! telescope no bigger than the one you Focus: Look through the eyepiece are using right now. Galileo, who is one LOOKING AT OR NEAR THE SUN WILL CAUSE and practice focusing on the object of the first astronomers to use a INSTANT AND IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE TO you have chos
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volcanic activity. You can also see mountain object to observe the first time you go Beyond the planets are clouds of comets, icy ranges and fault lines on the Moon. out at night. Pick a night when the planetoids and other debris left over from 6 Moon is a crescent. No shadows are the birth of our sun. Recently astronomers Use a neutral density filter (often called a seen during a full Moon, making it have found large objects in this area and “moon filter”) when observing the Moon. a
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Fig. 5 and are sometimes called gas giants. If they Saturn is not the only planet that has had grown much bigger, they may have rings, but it is the only set of rings become stars. Pluto is made mostly of ice. that can be seen with a small 7 telescope. Jupiter’s rings cannot be Jupiter is quite interesting to observe. You seen from Earth at all—the Voyager can see bands across the face of Jupiter. The spacecraft discovered the ring after it more time you spend observing these bands, pas
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Other stars to look for are multiple stars. see in the Northern Hemisphere are the What’s Next? Beyond the Solar Very often, you can find double (or binary) Orion nebula during the winter and the System: Once you have observed our 8 stars, stars that are very close together. Triffid nebula during the summer. These are own system of planets, it’s time to These stars orbit each other. What do large clouds of gas in which new stars are really travel far from home and look you notice abo
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Fig. 6 will see that the moons are in a different Tighten the thumbscrews to secure position every night. As you get better at the Barlow lens and the eyepiece in eyepiece drawing, try more challenging sights, like a place. Some Barlow lenses can 9 crater system on the moon or even a nebula. double the power of your telescope. See Fig. 6. barlow Go your library or check out the internet for more information about astronomy. Learn Meade offers a complete line of eyepieces about th
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Place the object to be viewed at the have greater contrast. Try reducing power tracks). Viewing from the upper floors of a edge of the field and, without (change your eyepiece) if your image is building may also cause image movement. 10 touching the telescope, watch it drift fuzzy or shimmers. Keep in mind that a through the field to the other side bright, clear, but smaller image is more Let your eyes “dark-adapt”: Allow five or before repositioning the telescope inte
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objective lens is. Your telescope is 70mm or Surf the Web and visit your local library: magnifies an object 27 times. Your 2.75 inches. Other telescopes are 90mm, 8 The internet contains a huge amount of 9.7mm eyepiece magnifies objects inches, 16 inches, or even 3 feet in 11 astronomical information, both for children 73 times. diameter. The Hubble Telescope’s objective and adults. Check out astronomy books from lens has a diameter of 2.4 meters (that’s 7.8 your library. L
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Look at the specifications. You will magnification is when you use a Barlow, • Avoid cleaning the telescope’s lenses. A see that the focal length of your multiply your eyepiece’s magnification little dust on the front surface of the 12 scope is 700mm. Let’s say that you by two. telescope’s correcting lens will not cause have obtained a 13mm eyepiece. You loss of image quality. Eyepiece’s magnification x 2 can tell that what the focal length of • When absolutely necessary, dust o
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telescope tube, resulting in a more comfor- table observing position in most cases. 13 Additional Eyepieces (1.25" barrel diameter): For higher or lower magnifications with the telescopes that accommodate 1.25" eyepieces, Meade Series 4000 Super Plössl eyepieces, available in a wide variety of sizes, provide a high level of image resolution and color correction at an economical price. Contact your Meade Dealer or see the Meade catalog for more information. Visit us on the web at
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Meade, freight-prepaid, with proof of limited to a term of one year from the date MEADE CONSUMER SOLUTIONS purchase. This warranty applies to the of original retail purchase. If you have a question concerning 14 original purchaser only and is non- your telescope, call Meade This warranty gives you specific rights. You transferable. Meade products purchased Instruments Consumer Solutions may have other rights which vary from state outside North America are not included in De
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OBSERVATION LOG OBSERVER: OBJECT NAME: DATE & TIME OBSERVED: CONSTELLATION: EYEPIECE SIZE: SEEING CONDITIONS: EXCELLENT GOOD POOR NOTES: DRAWING OF IMAGE (SAVE ORIGINAL - BE SURE TO MAKE COPIES)
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OBSERVATION LOG OBSERVER: OBJECT NAME: DATE & TIME OBSERVED: CONSTELLATION: EYEPIECE SIZE: SEEING CONDITIONS: EXCELLENT GOOD POOR NOTES: DRAWING OF IMAGE
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Meade Instruments Corporation 1-800 6001 Oak Canyon, Irvine, California 92618 Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversable damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. 626-3233 www.meade.com
