I'll offer some advice on your battery question: I'm not exactly sure what battery you are actually using, but inverters are power hogs. Even though your telescope drive only consumes 4 watts AC (per Meade's owner's manual), the ac inverter running your scope is consuming considerably more. A newer model might be a bit more efficient that an older one. An annoying feature of most AC inverters is the "battery saver" function. This is to prevent running your car battery down so low that it can't start the car. If you are on a portable battery, this isn't a concern, but I have found most inverters voltage threshold are too sensitive and they will shutdown with a low battery indicator. If you add accessories like dew heaters, cameras with thermoelectric coolers, and laptop the power usage increases dramatically and you will need a full size battery to last through the night. If you aren't using all the extra equipment, you can probably get by with a small 12V lawn and garden battery available at hardware stores. I would recommend a sealed version if at all possible. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Dion Davidson Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 10:36 AM To: Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Frustration at the eyepiece: help! I need help with a few things that are causing frustration for me at the scope this year: Battery: I bought a Ryobi battery/light/tire pump to use as an power source for my scope. But it is always dead! Useless. Even if I charge it for 2 days prior to an event, it will be dead within minutes of using it. Suggestions for a better battery? My old Meade 2120 10 SCT uses AC power, so I use an inverter between the battery and the scope. Know of anything better for sale? Viewfinder: I have the straight-through 8x50 viewfinder that came with my scope. It works fine but I have a hard time finding stuff, especially when looking up. I'd like to get a right angle correct image viewfinder. Suggestions? Know any for sale? If I bought a non-Meade one, could someone show me how to connect it to my tube? Would I have to drill holes? Collimation: I think my scope is ok (I had it collimated at Scope City when I bought it), but I've heard other opinions from SLAS members. Could I get help from someone who knows what they are doing on a) determining if my scope needs collimation, and b) how to do it. I have read a bunch online and watched youtube videos but I'm none the wiser. Finding stuff: I would love to have a class/lesson/tutorial on how to find cool stuff in the sky. I struggle to find anything but the most basic things in the sky. Having the image inverted/upside down in my viewfinder doesn't help, and it seems I can always see more stars in the eyepiece than I can on a star chart, which makes it difficult to know if I'm in the right area. I probably need some basic instruction on star hopping and recognizing star magnitudes, fields of view, map orientation, etc. (FYI: I can usually find the moon, planets, and some familiar deep sky stuff: M8 (Lagoon), M31 (Andromeda), M13, Orion Nebula, and even M57 (ring nebula)). I spent a beautiful weekend in Montana this weekend under dark skies and spent a few hours one night looking for stuff and finding none of it! (I looked for M51, M81, M82, M101, M108. I even looked for PANSTARRS). I went back out early in the morning on another day and did see M31, M57, and got M81 and M82 in the same field of view. So, some redemption. Thanks for listening. Dion _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".