Instructional Videos
Our plan is to create a suite of instructional videos for the main items of equipment BAS has available to members to rent. From there we will progress to other mounts and telescopes commonly used by our members. These videos will provide the basic information to get started with tasks such as set-up, star alignment and common operational tasks.
But, as the TV ad say, “it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen”. Here is what we have so far:
Skywatcher – Star Adventurer Tracking Mount
Learn how to align the Star ASdventurer with the South Celestial Pole to allow log-exposure astro-photography.
Star Adventurer – Southern Hemisphere – Quick Polar Alignment
How to get the Star Adventurer quickly alighned towards the south celestial pole, even in day light.
Finding Deep Sky Objects with SkySafari
Using SkySafari to find more deep-sky objects by making sure your telescope is pointing exactly to the spot where your target object is located.
Canon PowerShot G5X Astrophotography
An introduction to automated and manual mode astrophotography with the Canon PowerShot G5X camera.
For a link to Canon Digital Photo Professional mentioned in the video Click Here
Some Instructional Videos for Celestron Telescopes
Video for Celestron GoTo telescopes
We have scoured the Web and YouTube to find what we think are the best instructional video for Celestron GoTo telescopes. The following are our pick to get you started with initial telescope set-up, star alignment and updating locations, date and time information. For telescope beginners we recommend beginning your learning journey using the hand-controller rather than a WiFi connected mobile device – assuming your Celestron telescope was actually supplied with a hand controller. Once you are familiar with these initial steps you could then move on to control via WiFi.
Step 1. Align the Red Dot Finder With the Telescope
The Red Dot Finder does not look particularly important, however it is an invaluable tool you are likely to utilise again and again in an evening’s observing. So, your first step when setting up your telescope is to make sure your red dot finder and telescope are co-aligned and aiming at the same target. The process to do this is most easily done before dark when you can clearly see a distant tree or power pole that you can point the telescope to and then align the red dot finder to. Click on the video below to learn how it’s done.
Step 1A. Align an Optical Finderscope With the Telescope
If your telescope uses an optical finderscope (typically a small refractor scope) you will need to align its filed of view with that of your telescope. Click on the video below to learn how.
Step 2. Inputting Your Location, Date and Time into the Telescope Hand Controller
If you take your Celestron telescope to a new location you will achieve better star alignment if you tell your telescope where it has now been placed on Earth. But don’t get too hung-up on the need for super accurate GPS or place location accuracy – 50km this way or that way won’t make much difference. But, if you do need to update location, date or time information the following video explains the process.
Step 3. Align the Telescope With Three Stars
Your task now is to help your telescope determine the accurate position of three stars. Your telescope then uses the position of these stars to allow its internal computer to calculate the location of every other object in its 40,000 object database that will be visible tonight. Getting this task completed accurately is vital for your telescope to be able to subsequently slew to a database object and have it immediately visible in the eyepiece.
During this alignment process you may find it easiest to use the longest focal length eyepiece you have, often this will be a 25mm eyepiece. The longer the eyepiece focal length the larger the patch of sky you will see and the easier it will be to find each of the alignment stars when the procedure asks you to centre a star in the eyepiece. The following video explains the Three Star Sky Align process.
The All In One Video
This video covers most of the same material explained in the Steps 1,2,3 videos above. However, this video might also prove useful to you as the presentation is very clear and thorough.