help with skywatcher 130p

[Charlie_132]

Hello, just brought a skywatcher 130p - it came with 2 eyepieces .. 25mm and 10mm .. I also brought a barlow 3x

I can focus on venus with the 10mm and mars but I can't make out any detail still ...

And I can't find a thing with the 3x barlow even when putting it in when focused on a planet ..

Could someone give me dome advice/help please ?

[Welrod50]

OK, Charlie try this:

Take scope and eyepieces outside half an hour before you want to start observing. Then go out, allow your eyes to get used to the lower lighting for ten minutes then use the 25mm EP to find the planets. Set up the 10mm EP in the Barlow ready and when you've got the planet in the centre of your field of view, swap the 25mm out for the Barlowed 10mm straight away. That's the easy way of getting to grips with the object (unless you have a finder or red dot scope attached).

Also be aware of atmospheric quality. You need good 'seeing' before any telescope will have any chance of pulling detail out of what you point it at. Assuming the atmospheric turbulence isn't too bad, you've got the quality of the optics to contend with. Generally speaking, a Barlow lens will diminish image quality anyway.

Finally, the scope must be correctly collimated with the mirrors aligned inside properly. If the collimation is off even a tiny bit, it will affect your view.

I've tried not to make things awkward, but these are all worthy considerations.

Chances are, it's just atmospheric turbulence in your locality and medium quality EP's and/or Barlow. If it makes you feel any better, tonight is the first night in two weeks that I've been able to see Jupiter's bands properly.

Good luck

Scott

[Charlie_132]

Thankyou! That's helped me a lot

I've seen the rings of saturn through the 10mm eyepiece, but it seems impossible to find it with the barlow attached /:

If I brought a higher quality eyepiece would I see saturn a lot better ?

[onmehedson]

Hi Charlie, the stock 10mm eyepeice is pants in reality, so adding the barlow exaggerates the poor quality.

So yes, a better eyepeice will go a long way to improving your viewing pleasure.

Good luck...

[Charlie_132]

Oh okay, so if I get a 4mm eye piece, the quality will be a lot better then I'm seeing with the 10mm ?

I still can't manage to find saturn with the barlow and 10mm lens ... Getting frustrating now

[richbyers]

you should be able to find saturn with a 10mm by itself, i use a 6.3 to view it close.....is your scope set up right?

bear in my if you go too low on the mm side, youll push the scope too much and quality will suffer badly

[proflight2000]

Mmmmm a 4mm eyepiece is a drastic bit of kit unless you are happy to pay mega bucks for a great bit of kit. 4mm really is pushing things to the limit where you would not enjoy it and you'd certainly never get anywhere shoving that into a barlow. a good 12mm eyepiece would suffice, even 15mm, a good quality one at that. the mont they say is everything, the eyepieces have to be along the same line, remember it is the eyepiece at the end of the day that makes for comfort etc. If you are trying to get everything larger then be aware size again is everything, the light gathering of the scope plays a major part in all this. Dont go massive on power such as 4mm, 6mm etc, you wont gain anything unless you get super dooper quality stuff. The BST 8MM is a nice eyepiece, good pupil view and pretty cheap at 47 quid.

[Charlie_132]

Oh think I may have confused you slightly,

I can see saturn very nicely, quite small but just how I wanted to see it, I can see the rings andthe gap inbetween, just I'd like to see it in a little more detail/a little bigger

How would I achieve this ?

Edit: okay, how much would a decent 8mm set me back ? Is there much difference between a 10 and 8mm ?

[crbazzer]

hi charlie. i also have the skywatcher 130P. it is a nice scope but you will have some problems with a X3 barlow. the magnification will be too much for the scope to cope with. you would be better with a X2 barlow, people keep saying the eyepieces that come with it are no good but i find them OK, i use both of them in my 12" dob also and they are ok. is your scope on a goto mount, if not, even if you could focus with the X3 barlow you will have problems tracking objects at that magnification.if its goto then it will track quite well. all said, you can't beat good quality EP's but the ones you have will be fine until you get some better ones.hope this helps.

chris.

[Tribal-Wolf]

I have a 10mm that came with my dob and a 10mm from 130P and they are completely different the one that came with my dob is actually not that bad but the 10mm ep that I got with the 130P is naff, not sharp, tight focus and colour fringing. Get yourself a decent EP and make sure you have a decent make barlow too or you will be wasting your time. Also make sure your scope is collimated as this will effect the sharpness of your view.

[onmehedson]

It is better to use just an eyepeice to reach the magnification you want to acheive.

May I ask when you say you cant see Saturn, do you mean that you cant see it at all or the image is blurry.

If you cant see it at all, first find Saturn with the 25mm then swap for the higher power eyepeice, please note even when using the 10mm Saturn will race across the field of view very quickly and eventually disappear, so adjustments in right ascension will have to be made to keep `track` with the planet.

Good luck and stick with it....

[crbazzer]

the detail you see will have a lot to do with seeing conditions not your scope,some nights will be better than others with exactly the same set up.its all down to asmospheric conditions and light polution. keep trying on different nights and you will see better on some of them. As for the size, there's not much you can do about that, even in the 12" dob its not that much bigger but you do get better quality sometimes.Tonight, earlier was quite good,got good views of jupiter so i waited for saturn to show its face but the conditions must have changed and the seeing wasn't good later on. so you never can tell until you get out there and have a look.

[onmehedson]

The BST 8MM is a nice eyepiece, good pupil view and pretty cheap at 47 quid.

1.25" Eyepieces

This seller is top notch, many will agree with me I`m sure....

[Charlie_132]

I've came inside now, saturn was getting a little blury, it was nice viewing at about half 10/11 though

I have a 2x barlow coming which was free, just I brought the 3x barlow because I'm inpatient at waiting haha! I'm going to send the 3x back though.

So at the moment I have the 25mm and a 10mm eyepiece, I've used the red dot quite a lot tonight aswel, but I find it usually doesn't line up the planet completely, have to move around quite a lot which is annoying.

Will a 8mm eyepiece improve the quality by a lot ?

[Tribal-Wolf]

TAL Barlow is very good for the money

[Charlie_132]

where would m81 and m82 be tonight ?

i would really like to see these

[Andy-man]

where would m81 and m82 be tonight ?

i would really like to see these

Have you downloaded Stellarium yet? It is really useful for locating everything that's up the sky.

M81 and M82 are located near Ursa Major (the Plough) - here's a link.

Happy hunting.

Andy

[Astro Imp]

I've used the red dot quite a lot tonight aswel, but I find it usually doesn't line up the planet completely, have to move around quite a lot which is annoying.

You need to to make sure that the red dot is in line with your main tube.

I would suggest you get Polaris in the centre of your 25mm eyepiece and, then move to your 10mm and centre in that, now get your red dot spot on Polaris. Having done this carefully now when you use the red dot on a target it will be right in your eyepiece.

Good luck.

[Charlie_132]

Have you downloaded Stellarium yet? It is really useful for locating everything that's up the sky.

M81 and M82 are located near Ursa Major (the Plough) - here's a link.

Happy hunting.

Andy

yes i have this on my latop, but the galaxies arent marked at m81 and m82 ? what do they come up as on the map ?

also i would like to take some pictures tonight ... is it just a case of lining my digital camera up with the telescope eyepiece ?

Or would a Logitech C170 Webcam be better

Or the xbox 360 cam ?

[Andy-man]

Hmm, M81 & M82 should be obvious in Stellarium - although I haven't looked for those two myself in Stellarium. Perhaps you need to alter some of the Stellarium settings/configurations to show lesser magnitude DSOs or download more data (star) sets.

The picture in the link I posted earlier should give you a good idea where M81 & M82 are located relative to Ursa Major.

As for taking photos...........apart from taking a couple of photos of the moon with a compact digital camera through my little monocular, I have no experience of photography. I believe the general rule of thumb is long-exposure using Digital SLR for deep sky objects (galaxies etc) and webcam for planets. I'm sure someone much more knowledgeable will be along shortly! Also, the search tool is very useful!

[Thirdway]

M81 is known as Bodes Galaxy. Not sure what Stellarium calls it. It's above Ursa Major. M13 globular cluster might be nice to view with your setup. A good one to look at is the Orion Nebula m42 good with the 25mm.

[Charlie_132]

What settings should I change ?

The only thing I changed since I brought it was the area I live in

I've also just brought a microsoft lifecam vx-700 .. Suposidly good for astro photos, but I ll see later tonight ..

Is there any galaxies in the east ? Do they move the same as planets ? Probably a silly question

[Tribal-Wolf]

You can type 'M81' into the stellarium search and it will centre it on screen.

[Charlie_132]

Oh okay, I didn't know I could search on stellarium ... Just figured out how to

What is in the east/near mars that I could look at ? Is there any galaxies ?

[Thirdway]

There is group of 4 near Mars. M105, M95, M96. These were the galaxies I found using the 200 Dob plus 32 panaview on a perfect site, under perfect viewing and they were still just fuzzy blobs.