Pea sized planet!

[Daedalus]

Hi all. I posted my first thread yesterday and appreciate those who took time out to answer it. Something has been on my mind and I suppose I'll feel better if I just let it out.

I have the explorer 200p reflector. Last night was my first ever viewing. I set it up to view Jupiter and several of us where very eager to view it for the first time as more than just a bright dot. So, after several setup problems (not sussed out how to set mount up yet) I managed to prop everything up so that Jupiter came into view. To get the biggest view of the planet I used the x2 barlow and the 10mm eyepiece that came with it. Now, I know how far Jupiter is from the Earth, but somehow I was expecting to see something a little bigger in the eyepiece. Jupiter was only pea size. You could see faint banding on the planet and I have only seen Jupiter as a bright dot, so I was kind of impressed. But when I showed other people, I got "Is that it! The massive telescope, the 2 person lift mount and the £400 outlay and all you can see is a planet the size of a pea...in black and white!"

So yeah, I felt a bit stupid. However, I have absolutely no idea if using this scope with different eyepieces, a different barlow, proper collimation etc, can I improve on the image we all so last night. (no counting good/bad seeing). Everybody says how good this scope is and that its a big improvement over the 130/150. If all i saw was a tiny pea size planet then I gather the 130/150 would be even smaller.

Please understand, I was excited with what I saw, but I kind of hope that I can improve on this.

Please advise, as there are a lot of users on here who probably have 200mm scopes or less.

Thanks people.

Deadalus

[Carbon Brush]

You will see much more with your SW200.

There is enough light gather to allow you to go to high magnification - with the correct eyepiece and sky conditions.

I have an SW200 and the stock 10mm EP is useful only as a dust plug. It gives low contrast when compared to other EPs. There are though some better EPs that were provided with the scopes, so I may just have a bad one.

But is the sky up to the job? By this is mean the 'seeing'. You need clear and stable air to get a good high magnification image. Not every night gives this.

Then location. As a worst case, if you observe over a poorly insulated building, the air won't be stable. You will get poor results even from the best nights.

Finally the scope itself. Do you know if it is well collimated? Huge difference in performance for a few minutes work.

Don't expect too much first time out. As you learn more about your kit, it will give you more. The SW200 is a very nice scope for the money and should serve you well.

[Double Kick Drum]

I have a 5" refractor and can see plenty of colour. The two equatorial belts are different widths and colour. The narrower one appears much redder at the moment (well... it did a week ago).

I say all this as my scope is F5 achro refractor and thus not the best for colour. If mine can see that, i'm sure that with one or two more sessions you'll start getting more out of your scope.

Happy hunting!

[Daedalus]

Well that sounds promising. I am hoping that last night was a taster of better things to come and look forward to better understand and learning my way around the night sky and my sw200. When people say something isnt rocket science, I always wondered what is. Astronomy maybe 'rocket science' cause its certainly confusing me. :-)

[Daedalus]

Out of interest, to get maximum size viewing in the eyepiece, what do you think the best setup to view Jupiter on my sw200p would be. So far, the biggest I got (pea size) was with the x2 Barlow and 10mm standard eyepiece.

[John]

You are probably at the useful max now or even a bit beyond it at 240x. I find 150x-180x reveals the most detail on Jupiter.

I guess you were thinking the planet would appear as big as the images you have seen of it ?

It's a common misapprehension I'm afraid - have a look though the recent posts by people new to using scopes and you will see lots commenting on exactly this.

With the exception of the Moon, the views through scopes tend to be more subtle than folk imagine.

If you had a scope twice a large 200x - 250x would still be about the most usable on the planets on all but the best nights.

[4lefts]

Hi. I used to have (just sold) the same scope on dobsonian mount. It's a GREAT scope, so don't feel bad.

I'm pretty much a beginner too - I've been astronomying for about a year. The first things I'd say is to keep your chin up. Like anything, it's about learning, and this means two things. First, you'll learn about your gear, and become much better at setting it all up. Second, you get a lot better at observing, which is a skill in itself. I just set my little 80mm refractor for a quick half hour on jupiter, and was really pleased that I could just make out the great red spot (only just - i just checked the transit times when I came in and they seemed to agree with what I saw). That was at 80x mag, using a 5mm ep. My point is that there there is NO WAY I could have spotted something like that a year ago, and I'm really pleased that I could see it tonight, and I feel like my skills have improved a bit.

Don't get hung up on image size - I generally never bothered with more than 200x in my 200p for jupiter or saturn. Yes, the image is small, but crispness is more important. I don't particularly like the skywatcher standard barlow - i've never once used mine and thought the view wasn't better without it, even though it's half the magnification. So I'd say, go for less mag - the 10mm gives you 100x mag (i think?), which should be enough for a nice view of Jupiter. An ep that gives 150x is good too.

As you know, collimation is important - with something with a lot of fine detail like Jupiter, the difference collimation can make it enormous. Also, seeing makes a massive difference (the steadiness of the atmosphere and so on). Finally, you don't say what time it was - if Jupiter is quite low in the sky, there won't be much to see on it, it'll look like a snowball with 2 pink stripes.

Wow this is a long, rambling and kind of vague post. The bottom line it that you should definitely be able to make out some detail beyond just the main belts, a some colour (not crazy-red voyager images colour, but subtle colour).

Keep it up. Let us know how you go.

Stephen.

Edit - wow, a lot of other post said all that better while I was composing that. So yeah, what they said ^^. Also, I never like the 10mm with my 200p. The bst explorer 8mm is nice for 40 quid.

[LukeSkywatcher]

This is a very useful site. Its pretty damn accurate.

Its the 2nd time tonight that i have posted a link to it:

Telescope Calculator

[Daedalus]

Out of interest, last nights viewing was at about 9pm. Not sure if that was the best time or not? Getting cold at night now, the metal on the scope was v cold :-)

[swamp thing]

As others have said, expectations can be very high after seeing images from Hubble and spacecraft.

Just remember, they cost a little more than your scope and take a little longer to set up.

Amateur astronomy is not quite as easy as most imagine.

Visual observing is a learning curve ( and imaging is no cake walk either:D).

Try to keep your chin up and keep at it. The detail will come with time and patience.

Think how long it took for astronomers in the past to gain info on the planets. Even then they were often wrong. As their views were similar to ours.

Clear skies

Regards Steve

[LukeSkywatcher]

Out of interest, last nights viewing was at about 9pm. Not sure if that was the best time or not? Getting cold at night now, the metal on the scope was v cold :-)

The very best time to observe anything in the night sky is when they are at their highest (directly overhead on the meridian or close to). This is because there is less atmospherics and pollutants for the light from objects to tavel through. The light is more concentrated and not as scattered. Also the best time to observe is a couple of hours before sunrise. The air is at its stillest and the earth has given off as much of its heat as it is going to.