BabyJo84

Hi there. Fantastic shots!

I'm also in Lancashire and Jupiter has been mega bright since October. Still going strong!

On 09/11/2022 at 09:06, badhex said:

Hi and welcome to SGL! 

Some great advice already. Like @Ags above I have a very similar scope to yours (in fact the specifications for my William Optics Zenithstar 73 are virtually identical to yours, essentially it's a newer version of the same scope).

This scope can and will show you *a lot*, but there are some caveats and some things you can do to help, mostly mentioned in previous answers so I won't repeat the same advice. That said as our scopes are virtually identical I can give a few bits of advice that are scope specific. 

With this scope I don't often push magnification above around 100x but it can go higher than that when observing conditions allow. I have observed the planets (Saturn, Jupiter in particular) many times with it and with a little patience and time at the eyepiece you can see a lot of detail even though the image is quite small. 

Where this scope really shines though is objects like open clusters or other wide-field objects. One of my favourite eyepieces to use with this scope is a 17.5mm so your 18.2mm Delite should give a very similar experience. It's quite low power at 24x and you'll get a reasonably large patch of sky, so star fields, large open clusters and constellations in and around the Milky Way for example will look great. Try just slowly panning the scope around in those areas with this EP in and see what you can find! You may be  surprised how many fuzzy patches or clusters you happen upon. 

You mentioned that you're observing from an area with low light pollution - do you mean overall light pollution or 'local' light pollution?

One way to find out approximately how dark your observing location is would be to enter your observing location into the Clear Outside tool which will show you the estimated Sky Quality (SQM) and Bortle Class. 

https://clearoutside.com/

SQM is more accurate but a bit hard to make sense of initially. The Bortle scale is more rough and ready but can give you an idea. For reference, 9 on the scale is worst - like observing from Piccadilly Circus - 1 is the best, like observing from the middle of the Atacama desert! 

All of that said, even if you are observing from somewhere dark out in the countryside away from large towns or cities, local light pollution is important as well. If there are lights on nearby, especially ones in your line of sight when observing, this can make a huge difference to your experience. 

Otherwise as mentioned there has been some great advice already, so take all that in, keep observing whenever you can and keep asking questions here! People will always be happy to help. 

This is fantastic thank you and thank you to all who responded!

I do have another question:

The SQM number. The higher it is the better? Or is it the lower the number the better?

I live in Lancashire so I'm going to make the most of the clear sky forecast tomorrow and head put to my local Bortle 4 area, equipped with my kit and all the great advice from here.

Hey Everyone 👋

I inherited my dad's Megrez 72FD last February, and I just adore the thing. 

However, I have no idea what I'm doing really. 

The kit includes:

The scope

First horizon 8115 mount and stand

Dielectric 45 degree angled lens holder (??lol)

Lenses: I know some of these are packing some value and quality. Are they wasted on a 72mm scope?

Altair Lightwave LER Zoom 8-24mm

Nirvana 16mm

WO uwan 7mm

18.2mm Teleview delite

Star guider 4 elements 3x Barlow

Extras:

An old Nikon Rebel T5 SDLR camera with lens and Nikon ring mount

He also had/has a couple of camera holder attachment thingies and what looks like a really small table mount, the kind of thing you'd see on a Dobsonian which is Skywatcher brand.

I can get some good view with this scope if all i do is swap lenses around.

What I'm not getting is any wow worthy views of planets (they are insanely small with no detail and hard to focus) or DSO's. Even the Pleaides aren't much more than the 5 main stars. This is even at low light pollution levels.

I can't help but feel like I'm just not getting the most out of this scope since all the reviews I read rave about it.

Do I really need to invest in a 100+mm for a good all-rounder or are there accessories I can buy for my Megrez that will enhance its performance?

My dad passed away in Feb and this is a hobby we shared when I was a kid. I've never been able to afford a good set up so I am reluctant to sell this on to raise money for something better due to it's sentimental value.

Thank you in advance!