telescope / planet watching help

[jaymz stealth]

hello i am having trouble viewing planets i can see the moon and craters niceley but planets im not sure if i have seen them yet i pointed my telescope at a star with lightly redish tint im asuming it was mars as it was where my star map said when using a 20mm eyepice it was to small to see so i switched to 12.5 still looked reletivly small coudent see andthing to a put a 1.5 magnyphying pice on it witch made the object big taking up the whole view in the eyepice yet i couldent see much i could see the edge it wasent sharp but was not blurry but that was it i couldent even see or tell of a red tint i also pointed it at jupiter earlyer in the evening and to be honest it looked similer to what mars did if not the same i tried the same thing with the 3x attachment

i think these objects i am looking at are the planets but cant be sure like i said i keep checkingto see if it is

i have a celestron powerseeker 50az can anyone help me with the best set up

i have a 20mm eyepice

a 12.5

and a 4mm

as well as a

3x barlow lense

1.5xerecting eyepice

[Capricorn]

Scope has a FL of 600mm so the 20mm gives 30x.

The 12.5 will give 48x

The 4mm will give 150x.

The 4mm is too much for the scope even if the optic are reasonable. I would not expect more then 80x out of it.

To see Mars with detail of any sort you need 200x and more, 250x would be better.

You will need a somewhat bigger scope to do the things you want to.

[jaymz stealth]

is it possible to view jupiter with the scope and maybenot see detail but beable to tell its jupiter or saturn

[Carl83]

I've just been outside and been looking at Mars. As a newbie myself, I found Mars to be tiny even using a 2 x Barlow with a 9mmEP. This equiated to about 220 x magnification. I could just make out surface detail (my scope is a 200p)

I found I expected too much from Mars! You won't mistake Jupiter when you find it (currently a bad time to view it as it sets really early). You should at least make out up to 4 of its moons looking like stars close by and hopefully some banding.