Problems viewing planets with my new reflector telescope

[E621Keith]

I use the moon for initial finder alignment and the fine tune it on a planet or a bright star. If your main scope has a narrow FOV, the moon can be located fairly easily while locating a planet can be much harder.

Jupiter should not look like a star, you can see the moons with a pair of binoculars. If you can't see the moons around Jupiter and it looked like a point source, you are pointing it at the wrong object.

[Moonshane]

I always use a planet or bright star or sometimes Polaris. Jupiter is good as you can see the moons in the finder.

[themos]

Knowing a few double stars can't hurt either

[robbo765]

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a look at either Jupiter or Venus tonight, as by the time the clouds cleared they were too low on the horizon and in cloud cover.

On the plus side I got to see mars at x100 still was very small but just big enough to be 99% it was mars. I could see no clear features but it looked disc like with a redish glow to it! Would that seem about right?

Then what i thought was Saturn began to rise so I tracked it! Then as it rose I could start to make out the rings . Even though it was still relatively low on the horizon. Then the clouds set in and I could follow it no further! It was still a great nights work though!!

Thanks everybody for all your help

[themos]

Yes, that sounds like Mars, it's quite small this time round.

[robbo765]

In terms of where earth is in its orbit compared to Venus mars Jupiter and Saturn. Which are relatively close to us in their orbits at the moment? I assum mars is quite far away from its best position. Also I've seen saturn before through a scope and can remember it being larger in the fov. This was a long time ago so I could be over exaggerating the memory (if that makes sense). Lol

[Ant]

Good stuff. You'll be fine aligning the finder with the moon: I do it all the time. When you're confident with it, you'll find you can align a finder with any celestial object (planets, stars, etc). This time, however, you'll want to be certain it's right so the moon is useful for that. Just make sure the moon is central in both the finder and the main scope and you'll be ok.

Completely agree with this.

Find the moon in the scope and roughly centre it. Then move to the finder and put the centre of the moon on the cross hairs...

With a low power eyepiece the Field of view is so big (maybe a degree across) that you can have the edge of the moon on the cross hairs of the finder and the moon would still be in the FOV.

This moon method is more than accurate enough to align a finder.

Ant

[John]

..... I assume mars is quite far away from its best position..... l

On 5th March Mars was as close to the Earth as it's going to get this opposition. It starts receding now until it's next opposition in 2014 when it's closest approach will be a little closer than this time around, so the planet will appear a little larger. In the opposition of 2018 Mars gets closer still and, at it's closest to Earth, will appear about 70% larger than this years max.

[robbo765]

Cheers John.

[sanmatt]

Also Robbo, have you downloaded Stellarium? Its superb.

Welcome

[robbo765]

@sanmatt. No I've got starwalk on my iPhone. Would stellarium give me the info on orbits that I spoke about on an earlier post?

[mt01]

@sanmatt. No I've got starwalk on my iPhone. Would stellarium give me the info on orbits that I spoke about on an earlier post?

what would you need to know that for ??

[sanmatt]

@sanmatt. No I've got starwalk on my iPhone. Would stellarium give me the info on orbits that I spoke about on an earlier post?

um, yes I believe so

[Dan287]

I'm new to this too, but have found aligning the finder scope with a distant tree at twilight, or tv mast lights as really easy

[ME!!]

Did you ever find a way to fix it? Can you see Jupiter now? I am having the EXACT same problem and I can't fix it!