Magnicon Universe 1000 problem
Walter Joseph
see anything. I'm wondering if the eyepiece is broken. The mirror
appears to be ok. Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot?
Randy Hartman
Hi, Walter;
I may be able to help, but I'll need a little background info from you, and
any of my questions answered. Magnicon telescopes are sold by Black's. I
believe that they are made by the same company that makes the "Jason" line
of scopes. First of all, is this a short, stubby looking scope, about 5-6
inches in diameter and about 15 inches long? The reason I ask is that I
used to work for Black's and remember selling these scopes. If so, there is
a barlow lens right at the bottom of the eyepiece drawtube. You are going
to have to use your highest focal length eyepiece to see anything at all
because of this barlow. That would probably be the eypiece with a 20 marked
on the top of it. (I am giving very simple to understand directions here,
because I don't know how deep your involvement in astronomy goes. I try to
go by the KISS principle). The higher the number on the eyepiece, the lower
the magnification.
Another problem may be that the scope is out of collimation (alignment).
This can be a rather long process for a beginner, but, if you wish, e-mail
me back, and I'll give you step-by-step instructions. I really can't see
the eypiece being broken, but an easy way to tell is to turn the eyepiece
around, look towards a bright, fairly uniform background, say, the daytime
sky (DO NOT look towards the sun), and look for cracks in the glass lenses.
If there aren't any we've ruled out that problem.
Next, is the finder lined up with the main scope?? If not, do this. During
the daytime, pick an object about a mile away, such as a radio tower, the
top of a tree, the elevator housing on the top of an apartment building,
etc. You get the idea. Now, center this object in your telescope using your
highest numbered eyepiece (again, the one with 20 something on it). Once
this is done, use the adjustment screws on your finder to center what you
are looking at in the crosshairs. Now, whatever else you center in the
finder, should be in the field of view of the main scope. If your telescope
is the one where the finder is built into the tube, ie: you flip a lever and
a little prism pops down into the light path, you will have to describe it
to me so I can tell you how to use it.
Try the above methods and get back to me. As this is my roommate's
computer, please use the following email address to get ahold of me:
( he gets kind of confused whenever he gets mail that he can't ever remember
writing to in the first place ) (G)
best of luck
Chris