Heritage 130p Help Please

[chaineos]

Hi all been reading forums for a while and a couple of week ago decided to buy Heritage 130p telescope, it came with with 10mm and 25mm. So I tried using it on a couple of bright stars that I can see which I assumed were Venus and Jupiter. Out of focus they look like polo mints and focused a pin dot but sharp. Next I thought I would get a barlow lens thinking it would solve the problem, tried again last night but same thing nothing like planet. Just wandered if I am being daft and they are just stars or if I am doing something wrong.

Any help appreciated thanks.

[tms48]

It sounds like you have not been looking at either jupiter or venus I have the heritage telescope and they are both easily seen. Try downloading stellarium to check their positions. Check your collimation, but if you are getting pin sharp star points it sound ok, but you can check it by doing a star test .

[littlebeagle]

You have to turn the eyepiece holder to focus, are you doing this?

Edit - I'd agree with the guy above actually sounds like you aren't looking at Jupiter and Venus. Download Stellarium, great bit of free software that'll show you every thing you need to know.

[chaineos]

Ah OK thanks for the replies, I have checked for collimation and it looked fine from what I have read. Do Jupiter and Venus show up really bright in the sky like one not far from the other, I have done the focusing it goes all the way to tight or really loose, like I say stars are sharp when in focus I just presumed they were planets.

Thanks again

[squashnut72]

I have the 150P which has the same eye-pieces and I can see all the planets just fine. Saturn was fantastic last night!!

You might went to try downloading Google Sky Maps onto your android or iphone if you have such a thing. It makes identification easy as you just point the phone at the sky and it tells you what you are looking at.

Cheers

[Astrosurf]

Have you downloaded Stallarium? I would be lost without it! Yes, they're very bright in the west at the mo. Venus is the brighter and further west.

[stev74]

Also how are you finding the 2 bright stars, are you using the red dot finder first then looking in the eyepiece? If so have you aligned the finder with the scope? If not you can do it in daylight (never near the Sun), find a distant object in the eyepiece like a chimney pot say then use the adjustment screws on the finder to make sure the view through the scope matches the view through the finder.

Then at night start with your lowest power eyepiece which is the one with the highest number (25mm) as that gives you the widest field of view and lowest magnification. Centre the planet in the field of view then up the the mag to the 10mm eyepiece. You should be able to resolve the planets into small discs and maybe pick out some surface details on Jupiter and the rings of Saturn.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk

[JamesF]

Venus is the brighter and further west.

Isn't Jupiter further west now?

James

[chaineos]

Hi thanks for the help, appreciate it. I have got sky maps on phone and pointed it to those bright stars, they aligned up with venus and jupiter so I guess it is them. Also yes I have aligned the red dot sight when I point to them I can see them through the eye piece. I have been using wider angle to get planet into sight then put on the 10mm and then barlow. Could be the focusing I am not sure, I turned it back and forth until it was clear so I guess it is working ok.

Thanks again for the replies.

[Pappy Nick]

Hi Chaineos ...

I own a Heritage 130p, and I've been out with it quite a lot recently. At this moment in time you won't get Jupiter and Venus "in shot" together with the supplied eyepieces. But you should be able to see quite clearly that you are looking at planets, albeit very small ones. I've been able to distinguish Jupiter's bands and four of its moon quite readily, although I must admit to finding Venus a bit underwhelming (I can only make out a small, very bright, white disc). Mars is also resolved as a very small, reddish disc without much detail.

I got Saturn for the very first time last night and, although once again very small, and faint, it's rings were very distinct. I was so chuffed I toasted myself with a celebratory glass of El Vino Collapso whilst still outside

BTW - for what it's worth, I find that a Barlow usually makes the view worse with the 10mm eyepiece. It could be pushing the 'scope past it's useful limits with the current seeing conditions.

[chaineos]

Thanks for that reply I did see a white disc so guess that was venus, will try for jupiter on a clear night. Do you leave your scope to cool outside and also when focusing do you just use very small movements as I tend to move the focuser a lot.

[tms48]

I usually give mine about 25 minutes, then use small movements when focussing. I find it helps to go slighltly out of focus in each direction and then come back into focus.

[Pappy Nick]

I usually give mine about 25 minutes, then use small movements when focussing. I find it helps to go slighltly out of focus in each direction and then come back into focus.

Yep, that's more or less what I do. I also put my eyepieces out with the 'scope, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

Focussing is always a bit tricky as you have wait a second or two for the vibrations to settle before you can really tell if you've got it right.

I'm also going to wrap some ptfe tape around the focusser's threads as I've heard tell that it helps dampen and smooth things out.

[chaineos]

thanks for all the replies will try it out as soon as sky clears, I will report back with success hopefully.

Thanks again all.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Are the truss arms of the scope fully extended and locked?

Is the scope collimated? (it should be collimated pretty well by the factory).

If what you saw out of focus looked like polo mints thats fine. Its how it should be.

If they looked like pin points of light when focused then i seriously doubt that it was planets you were looking at.

I also own a Heritage and planets have always looked like planets.

[mr saddo]

Hi there, good little scope the heritage, i have one, get some black cardboard and make a light shroud, so it wraps round the open truss, it will also stop your breath on the secondary mirror, turn the focuser slow, x2 barlow 10mm for Saturn and Jupiter, great scope for clusters, you can cover a lot of sky with this.

[Russe]

Which EP would you recommend for looking at greater magnification for this scope? A BST Explorer 8 mm maybe?

[Russe]

How Do you think the quality of the mirrors is like and where would you place max. workable magnification?

[chaineos]

Well had a quick go tonight with it on venus and jupiter, like people have said venus wasn't much to see but I managed to focus on jupter and saw the 4 moons in line with it, was only small but nice and clear and still better than what I had before so thanks for all the kind replies and help. I tried with the barlow lens on but couldn't get focus, but the 10mm worked fine.

Thanks again.

[Pappy Nick]

Sometimes pushing the secondary mirror/truss assembly back in by about an inch can help with focussing problems. I need to do this to bring my webcam to focus.

[richbyers]

i had problems with my 130 and barlow as well, but i managed to get it to focus in the end

[Russe]

I have found endless threads on a German astrosite about quality differences in the 130p heritage. One thing they said was that the scope was falsely sold as having a parabolic primary mirror. When measuring the curve of the mirror it looked more like the ripples in a pond. That would explain rubbish seeing. Stopped me from buying it as a gift actually!

[Russe]

http://www.astrotreff.de/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=102171

It's the 4th pic from the top - a so called Foucault test.

[Csuka]

wrong link sorry

[Russe]

It's a German site discussing the heritage 130p - and the 4th pic from the top shows the Foucault test of its primary mirror.

The link works for me.