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Hi Everyone, new member from York

big-vee-twin

By big-vee-twin
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big-vee-twin

big-vee-twin

Posted
Posted

Morning all,

Well I finally got myself a small starter scope a mercury 705 to start me off, with an idea of upgrading later if I get the sky watching bug.

I had my first Wow experience last night, I was looking at the Orion Nebula and whilst doing this an asteroid (or something similar) flew diagonally right to left across my view.

Just contemplating how far away that was and how fast it was travelling has given me a real buzz.

I currently only have the starter EP's at the moment and have a maximum of 50 magnification, but I managed to see Jupiter and three of its moons and a slight smudgy colouration to the planet, also got a good view of Venus and its Phase.

So not bad for its second outing.

Can anyone over advice regarding getting more Magnification - is a Barlow the next step?

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glowjet

glowjet

Posted
Posted

Hi Big-vee-twin and welcome to SGL, we have a very good Astro Soc in the City with its own Obsy on the outskirts, if you PM me, I would be please to advise you further.

I am not sure what a Mercury 705 is, but if it has a 70mm objective then max approachable mag will be in the region of 135X. Your mag calculations can be resolved by dividing your ep size in mm into the focal length of the scope in mm, if you invest in a 2X Barlow, this will increase the mag of any of your eps by a factor of two HTH :)

John.

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JamesM

JamesM

Posted
Posted

Hi and welcome to the forum. The refractor that you have is not a bad performer and is certainly good enough to help you get started. Being a short tube achromat (has two lenses rather than three at the front) the biggest problem you will experience on bright objects is what is know as false colour. This can effect the amount of detail that can be seen but remember, on deep sky objects (DSO's) which are not as bright, this colour distortion would hardly be present. A 2x barlow is probably the best way forward ('Tal' is a good make and are good value) and would give you around 100x magnification that will help you obtain a bit more detail and would make a worthwhile investment. Don't be tempted to get a barlow that is more powerful (x3 or x4) because the aperture of this scope can only collect so much light to start with, which is then stretched by the barlow to get an amplified image which will get progressively darker the more magnification is sought. I was going to recommend perhaps a 90 degree diagonal (the bit that the eyepieces attach to at the end of the scope) to provide a more comfortable viewing position when observing objects high in the sky but I would imagine that your next scope purchase is more likely to be a reflecting (not refracting) scope should you want to develop your interest in astronomy and so to that end, a barlow will still be useful whereas a diagonal would not. Hope that helps.

Clear skies

James

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