Can anyone help me with my InPhase telescope?

Question

My mom bought me an InPhase telescope, it came today. I set everything up but I'm not sure what to do with the "Barlow lens" and "T18 magnification" pieces. I've put them in the Eyepiece joint hole but I can't see anything out of it. Anyways, I'm not exactly sure which-goes-where so, can anyone help? (Yes, I read the instructions but they didn't help and they don't have a website so, thats no good)

Model: InPhase DG066229 Black

Answer 1

The Barlow lens is there to double the magnification, so you don't need it at the start. Just leave it out. I don't know about the rest, though. I don't have that type of telescope. Is it a reflector (with a mirror) or is it a refractor (with a big lens at the front)?

In my telescope, which is a refractor, you have to put the star diagonal (also called the 90 degree mirror) into the telescope, then put the eyepiece in the star diagonal.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Try using the telescope in the daytime to look at something far away. As far away as possible. A distant hill top would be good. Use the lowest power eyepiece and no Barlow or other adapter. Finding things and getting them in the field of view is the hardest thing for a beginner. Even the Moon can be hard to find for a beginner. But it is a full Moon now so that is as easy as it gets. But a distant hill is an even bigger target. It must be far away or you won't me able to move the focuser out far enough to get sharp focus. The closer the object is the farther out you have to move the focuser to make it clear. Probably several hundred feet is the closest object you can focus on. But even closer, you should see light, at least blurry light. After you can get the main telescope pointed at an object you can recognize, then look through the finder (the small telescope mounted on the side) and see if it has that same thing, at lower magnification, in the center of its field of view. If not, it should have adjusting screws you can use to change where it points. Once it points in the same direction as the main telescope, you can first find things with it then center them it its wider field of view and then look in the main eyepiece and just see it. With the Moon, it is so bright that you can see a glow in the eyepiece even if you aren't pointed at it exactly. Then you can just move the telescope this way and that, to make the glow brighter, until you stumble on the Moon. It takes LOTS of practice to get good at finding things. It is not nearly as easy as you think.

Answer 3

Don't throw away the barlow or the 5 mm eyepiece.  You may be able to get a few bucks for them on ebay or astromart.  The barlow is likely useless for this scope. But the 5mm will give you 140x - which is at the high end of the range that a 76mm scope can support.  Maybe it will be OK for the Moon, on a steady night.

I hope your mount is steady, and your focuser is smooth.

Bring the stuff outside, so you can look at things, during the day, at some distance.  See if the finder scope is in focus, even more or less.  If it is, look through it at something odd, like the top of a telephone pole.  Then put your tallest eyepiece in the focuser in the main scope, and goof around with the focus k**b until it's in focus.  Is it pointing to the same place as the finder scope?  Probably not.  See if you can make one aligned to the other.  If you are successful here, you're only close.  Due to parallax, you need to try it again, possibly with the Moon.  Pick a feature of the moon, and do this again.  The nice thing about the Moon is that you may be able to see it during the day.  Of course, you don't want to point this scope anywhere near the Sun.

Then at night, do the finder scope and main scope alignment again, but with a bright star.  Any bright star will do.  Then you need a sky chart so you can look for stuff.  m13 is one of the easier things to spot.  It's in Hercules.  You can download an appropriate sky map at the link.  One side has objects to look for.  If you have lots of light pollution, don't bother with galaxies other than m31.  And treat your telescope as "binoculars" - that is, take from that list.  Actually, start with the naked eye list first, and see if you can get your scope to point at those.

There may be an astronomy club near you.  Check the link.

Clear skies.  If you have more questions, you know where we are.

Answer 4

You have a newtonian reflector telescope.  

The Mirror is 76mm or just about 3" in diameter.  The focal length is 700mm.  

The barlow is apt to be of little use.  They include them so they can advertise silly high power beyond what the scope can actually resolve.

If it came with more than one eyepiece, you'd only use one at a time.  I'd suggest starting out with the lowest power eyepiece to observe the Moon tonight.  

If the focus is not set right, you may not see anything at all.  It's unlikely the scope will focus on anything closer than several hundred feet away.  The focuser will probably have at least an inch of travel.

If you're interested in astronomy, it would make sense to find a local astronomical society and attend some meetings.  You'll be able to look through their scopes, and they'll probably be happy to help you get off to a good start.

Answer 5

throw away the barlow. throw away the 5mm eyepiece. don't plan on using the 12mm eyepiece very much.

try the moon as your first target. try jupiter as your second.

don't expect miracles.