Telescopes

Archive for the ‘Bushnell Telescope’ Category

I’m buying a used telescope – here is one I foud:

Bushnell Sky Chief III
Made in 1986
700 power
Here’s more info:

It has a 3" lens at the aiming end.,I don’t know much about telescopes,as i said i bought it just for a look at a comet.The eyepieces are removable,i have 2 or 3 eyepieces of different power,and a barlo lens and a 1.5X Erector lens.,also has a sun lens,The telescope and stand weighs i would guess about 30 lbs. To aim the telescope you turn the cable knobs for very sensitive aiming,This was a high end telescope in 1986.Made in Japan. Its a Bushnell Sky Chief III.
I’l sell it for $50.00
Everything is in good condition,
Also, my boyfriend and I are willing to spend money over time to fix it up, buy new things for it.

No. Any telescope being sold on the basis of high magnification is going to be cheap junk. The important specification for a Telescope is its aperture. And 700x is unrealistically high. Also, Bushnell’s astronomical telescopes appear to be an afterthought in their optics line and are easily the worst thing they sell.

I have a telescope, but its missing the eyepiece, is there any way i can create my own, it a Bushnell if that matters

Bushnell scopes generally use standard eyepieces – usually 1.25 inches in diameter. These can be obtained – as Geoff mentioned – at any store that carries Telescopes, or on line at oriontelescopes.com. You cannot create your own eyepiece and expect it to function at even a rudimentary capability.

ADDED: The first eyepiece you get should be lower magnification – with a focal length (printed on the side) of say, 20 – 25mm. This will make it much easier to find and observe whatever you are targeting.

I have a Bushnell North Star "Go To" telescope. I got it yesterday. I assembled it and then took it outside to search the night’s sky. Although, I couldn’t see anything! Every time I align the red dot with the celestial object, for example, the moon, I look through the eyepiece(20mm) and see total darkness. It says something about looking through the main telescope tube in the instruction manual, although I don’t see why I would….I see nothing in it as well. The instruction booklet is very poorly written. I don’t see what I’m doing wrong here. I took the 20mm eyepiece out of it’s 2 plastic tubes and removed the protective thing off the main telescope tube. Am I missing something here?????
Oh, and earlier today (during day) I looked through my eyepiece when I had the red dot finder scope thing pointed at a tree, and I was able to see the tree clarified and zoomed in on my eyepiece like it’s supposed to be. However when I looked through it tonight, I got zip, nothing, nada.

Sounds as though the sighter scope is not correctly aligned with the main telescope.
The reason the instructions ask you to look through the main tube, is to confirm that the image you see in the sighter scope, is the same image in the main telescope.
Generally, the sighter scope has 3 small screws that you have to carefully adjust, so that it aligns with an objecgt correctly.
You have to repeat the adjusting exercise a few times (sighter, then telescope, then sighter, then telescope etc) a few times to get the alignment correct.

Secondly, lining up celestial objects is harder to do than lining up terrestrial ones such as a tree; this is because the margin for alignment error is greater in the former case, and will continue to be the case until you line up the sighter with the Telescope correctly.

Repeat the exercise with the tree, tonight, and sweep toward a really bright object such as the moon or Venus (not sure of your location, so maybe the moon is your best shot)

Be patient, and enjoy