What am I doing wrong?

[captaincaveman]

Had an amazing night viewing, but don't know where I'm going wrong, using my 25mm ep is had cracking views of Jupiter and 4 of it's moons, split albireo, scanned the w cluster, mini coathanger, kembles cascade(plus cluster below), double cluster and m34

As soon as I try gobular clusters, they are real blurry with the 25mm, with both the 9mm and Barlow, I can't focus on anything, not even open clusters, all a total blur?

Is it me, the scopes capabilitys, eps or my poor use of focussing?

Also can you get a different focusser to fix to end of tube and avoid the internal movement issues?

Also are focal reducers going to be any help with a mak?

Cheers

Jay

[John]

I can't recall what scope you have but the seeing conditions where I am at least are pretty poor.

You need to move the focuser slowly and finding fine focus can be quite fiddly with very small movements needed.

Most globular clusters do look like fuzzy blobs with small scopes and even with larger ones under poor seeing conditions.

[captaincaveman]

I can't recall what scope you have but the seeing conditions where I am at least are pretty poor.

You need to move the focuser slowly and finding fine focus can be quite fiddly with very small movements needed.

Most globular clusters do look like fuzzy blobs with small scopes and even with larger ones under poor seeing conditions.

127 mak, just don't understand why Its totally blurry with Barlow, I'm sure I read in sky@night mag, or somewhere that you can get focusser that screws into tube? I went from stop to stop with Barlow in, couldn't get close to focus?

[John]

Could you focus the 9mm without the barlow ?.

Tonights seeing conditions were pretty awful - the 9mm on it's own would give 166x which was more than the conditions could bear probably.

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

You can buy new focusers, decent dual speed ones etc, though tbh i doubt your problem is focus. Sounds like over-magnification tbh, especially if you're going barlow + 9mm. Probably the effect you can see on this page, as the mag goes up you lose edge sharpness and contrast, if you were to put that effect onto a tight cluster of pinholes, you'd end up with a smudgy cluster of smudge, which would look unfocused.

[captaincaveman]

I was quite pleased with the conditions tonight lol, that will be a bonus in the future, I was out in a t shirt so maybe the conditions not ideal

No I didn't put 9mm and Barlow together just 9mm on own and 25mm and barlow

[brantuk]

It's pretty hazy tonight - globulars that look like fuzzy blobs most nights are gonna be even fuzzier tonight. So I wouldn't blame your equipment on this occassion. You need a very clear night to ramp up the magnification on this sort of object. The highest I could effectively go tonight was around 100x on open clusters and galaxies, and around 144x on planets.

[pvaz]

Some globulars are very fuzzy and require aperture in order to show stars. As said before, bad seeing conditions have the same effect.

Try M13 in Hercules, which is the easiest one to solve, I know of. M92, in Hercules as well, is another nice target. M3 and M5 are good too, but probably too low in the west this time of year.

[Ptarmigan]

I was out in a t shirt so maybe the conditions not ideal

Ideal for bodily comfort perhaps !

I got so frustrated viewing this evening, perhaps for similar reasons to you, that I came online to see how John/jahmanson was getting on (he is not far from me !) and found this thread,

I got on ok with M13 earlier, but was having decreasing success with other feint fuzzies and when I totally failed with M2 I gave up ! used Mk1 eyeball and tho there was no light pollution, garden was pitch black, no clouds in the sky but I could not see better than mag 3 !

So yes, not optically ideal, like looking through lace curtains !

So the 'scope got a reprieve and narowly missed being tossed over the nearest hedge !

gd luck,

Malcolm.