Have i bought the wrong telescope?

[sooty157]

Had my first go at looking at the planets last night and i'm rather dissapointed. As you may gather i'm a complete novice so i spent a couple of weeks researching what telescope to buy for little money i.e £100 second hand to view planets in our solar system and decided if i could find a decent reflector that would be best for my money. after talking to a friend he said he had a Helios 115mm x 1000m focal that i could have very cheap so i snapped his hand off. last night i found all the planets i was looking for Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn but i couldn't see any great detail at all just bright spots in the 8mm ep. i suppose if i'm honest Jupiter was quite clearly a planet and the 4 moons were visable but i'm now wondering if i should have gone for a refractor to meet my needs?

[LeeB]

Hi if its the 114mm 1000mm I believe it has an extra lens in line with the eyepiece. Either way its ok, it sounds as if you cannot achieve good focus. It could need collimating (lining up of the optics). Check out www.astro-baby.com there is a good starter tutorial on collimation. 8mm will give you 125x which should be plenty to see bands on jupiter and rings of saturn nicely.

[rowan46]

a cheap refractor is no great shakes either. mars can be a difficult target and venus needs a larger scope to show the clouds. you should have been able to see saturn's rings but I'm guessing the eyepieces are not brilliant either.

[sooty157]

Hi Lee, thanks for that i thought the scope would be good enough i'm just not so sure now and a bit deflated. i'll look into collimation as i have no idea what this is or affects, another thing i've considered is the ep's i'm 90% sure they are the ones that came with the scope but they're not branded in any way so would quality ones help with magnification and sharpness?

[kenmyers]

You need to spend more time getting into focus.

It is a slow and patient hobby.

Your scope sounds ok. It will be perfect for the planets. You should see bands on jupiter with the 8mm and a lot of detail in saturn too. Do not expect to see mars well. Also venus is not so great either to begin with. Keep pointed at jupiter and dont give up untill it is super sharp and focused. Your seeing will improve after this.

[haitch]

Your eyes will also get better at seeing the detail over time. It takes practice. After a year of thinking my scope (the 14") was rubbish on planets it all just came together one night when the seeing also happened to be good (the atmosphere makes a big difference too).

[basher0010]

i was in a similar situation a mate was selling his celestron 114slt for £100. however the goto system on it was stuffed and as i later found it was a first edition and could not be re-flashed but after trying everything to get it to work i gave it him back in the end as i didnt like the views of the planets even with the supplied 4mm eyepiece im now the proud owner of the sw 200p reflector and the views have taken my breath away dont be dishartened you just need the right kit for you i saved for the 6" but Aparture is king and ended up with the 8" now i want to go bigger but i dont think the wife agrees this might take a couple of years to achive lol

[sooty157]

thanks for everyone's feedback and i'll stick with it for now and maybe get some better ep's also gonna look at the collation later as i've had a good read of LeeB's link and it doesn't look that complicated. any other advise would be appreciated.

[Bart]

yes, check the collimation . That's important

[bombassa]

Yeah, collimation or dew.

Nothing can ruin a good night like these two.

Regards and good luck

[kenmyers]

The longer you spend looking at an object the more detail you will tease out of it. Remember - that light has to travel out to the planet from the sun and then bounce and come all the way back and into your telescope light bucket.

Also it is good to remember that the more you zoom in - the dimmer your image will look. The further you zoom out - the brighter your image will look.

This is the same for sharpness and ease of focus.

[perrin6]

'time and patience, patience & time' - from 'War & Peace' (oh and a better high power eyepiece probably)

[sanmatt]

It might just be poor seeing conditions, its not just about having a clear skies. A lot of variables out there - equiptment, practise, seeing conditions etc

I understand your frustration though, I sometimes threaten to flog the lot after a poor night.

[Moonshane]

I am sure you'll improve the image with better eyepieces which can be used with future scopes if you buy further units.

As others say, collimation will make a big difference potentially.

Where are you as it may be possible to meet someone for guidance.

[astro_dog]

I spent an hour last night trying to take a picture of saturn through my eyepiece with a cheap compact camera.

celestron slt90 mak focal length 1250mm

10mm eyepiece

after about 50 goes i got an ok one! this is not a bad represntation of what you should be able to see with your scope. you may see it slightly smaller through your ep, but should be similar, maybe brighter with you having more aperture.

Its my first ever pic of a planet! hope you get yours working nicely soon!

[sooty157]

hi astro, yeah i did see a similar image to that but as you say much smaller and brighter could just make the rings out as a haze though.

[sooty157]

hi Moonshane, i'm in hull, east yorks.

[Peter Drew]

Hull astro society should be able to help you out.

[perrin6]

It might just be poor seeing conditions, its not just about having a clear skies. A lot of variables out there - equiptment, practise, seeing conditions etc

I understand your frustration though, I sometimes threaten to flog the lot after a poor night.

Reminds me of when Basil Fawlty bashed his poor little ailing car with a tree branch !

[sooty157]

deviating a little from the original thread with my scope what size ep would be ideal for studying the moon so i can buy a quality one and use that as a starting point albeit when it's back in the evening.

[sanmatt]

Reminds me of when Basil Fawlty bashed his poor little ailing car with a tree branch !

ha yes! My scope will be gettign some of the same treatment one of these days.

Love that image of Saturn, thats exaclty how I see her through my 150PL

[ronin]

Mars needs mre magnification then you will achieve with your scope. all you will see is a small red/orange disk.

Venus will be a cresent and being cloud covered you will simply be looking at the top of the cloud layer - no detail.

Not sure what the scope is, someone mentioned a lens in the focuser to achieve the desired focal length. If it is one of those then they are not good. The design idea is fine but doing it on a budget means cutting corners and that means a poor final result.

The scope probably need collimating.

8mm on a 1000FL means 125x, depending on how good the scope is that may be close to the maximum you will use most of the time. Don't believe tales of huge magnifications.

Jupiter at 125x should have been good, hence the idea to check the collimation. It should also be reasonable on Saturn.

As to whether you should have bought it, never easy to anser, it is a scope and you could have waited for another. But when do you stop waiting?

[cs1cjc]

\can I add that reflectors take time, perhaps an hour or more, to cool down before you will see clearly at high magnification.

[nickdud]

stick with it, its worth the wait;)

[Tribal-Wolf]

It does sound like a Bird-Jones design which are a bit more fiddly to collimate I believe but there are tutorials around. As said earlier the eyepieces that come with the scope are not great so a better quality eyepiece is worth thinking about, you will be able to keep it if you upgrade the scope in the future so it's worth getting a half decent one. With it being a relatively small compact scope you have the option of taking to a dark sight which will help immensely too. Stick with it as it's a learning process like everything else.