corgireg

25 minutes ago, John said:

You will need to either use a shorter focal length eyepiece such as a 5mm or use a 2x barlow lens with the 10mm eyepiece which effectively makes it a 5mm.

The planets do tend to look small with telescopes though even when very high magnifications are used.

 

 

Thanks John this information is very useful

3 hours ago, Waddensky said:

Thanks! Sounds like your focus is spot on, Venus should look like a small dot in your telescope. What you're trying to do, is getting Venus closer by using the focus wheels. That's not possible. If you want to see Venus larger, you'll need to use another eyepiece with a shorter focal length, or perhaps a zoom eyepiece. What kind of eyepieces were delivered with this scope?

The eyepieces I have are a 10mm and a 20mm, what do you suggest if I want to see planets closer up

17 hours ago, Ricochet said:

The focus points of the moon and all of the stars and planets are practically identical. If you focus on the moon and then move to a star it will also be in focus. If you focus on the moon and find that stars are not in focus at the same point then you have not focused on the moon. 

As a rule when focusing on astronomy you should always turn the focuser so that the image becomes smaller. Stars will always be point sources and planets will be small disks or crescents. 

what I am trying to do is, when I look at the moon its in good focus and very clear, but when I look up further at Venus which is a very bright small dot and I try to bring it closer by using the focus wheels on the eye piece, that's when I can see a black disc and struts 

16 hours ago, John said:

Assuming that you keep the same eyepiece in the scope, if you have the moon in sharp focus, you would only need to make a very small adjustment to get sharp focus on something further away such as a planet or star.

 

 

what I am trying to do is, when I look at the moon its in good focus and very clear, but when I look up further at Venus which is a very bright small dot and I try to bring it closer by using the focus wheels on the eye piece, that's when I can see a black disc and struts 

17 hours ago, Owmuchonomy said:

If you can see the vanes holding your secondary mirror then you are miles away from focus. As above focus until a star becomes as small as possible. You then don’t need to adjust it unless it is slipping or you change eyepiece.

what I am trying to do is, when I look at the moon its in good focus and very clear, but when I look up further at Venus which is a very bright small dot and I try to bring it closer by using the focus wheels on the eye piece, that's when I can see a black disc and struts 

Hi, I have just bought my first telescope a Celestron Astromaster 114EQ telescope, I don't know if it is working correctly or not as this is my first. When I focus in on, say the Moon, its good and clear, but when I focus on a more distant object I can see the struts and centre piece of the small mirror in my view, is this correct or is it faulty