saturn

[jaymz stealth]

i have just come in from an hour and half trying to get saturn i eventualy did witch i can belive for one i have a 50 az celestron telescope witch hasent reallt picked up anything bar the moon and 2 it was with a eye pice that ive been told is usles for my scope a 4mm it wasent massive in the eye pice saturn was about the size of this o in the middle of the view but u could see it had more width it wasent untill i pulled my eye from the eye peice ever so slightly and my eye focused slightly better i see a clear view of the rings it was all white the colours but the ring was there tho be it very small literaly about o small witch i can only describe as in an area in the eye peice that looked like a cd size in comparison

there is how ever something i dont get with a 20 mm and a 3x barlow lense it sooms in i have saturn taking up just about half the view yet no ring also i have these strange marks around the planets actualy when ever i am using the barlow lense it looks like 3 tabs evenly space around the perimiter or any planet i look at or star when on barlow lense it doesent matter where in the view i point they follow and stay in the same place on the planet does anyone whow what this is

[John]

3 tabs around the perimeter would be the 3 foil spacers that are part of the objective lens of your scope I reckon - it also means your scope is nowhere near in focus if you can see those. A 50mm scope will just about show that Saturn has rings and it's brightest moon, Titan. It will appear very small because the max magnification you can use is 80x - 100x. My guess is you see it appearing larger but without detail with the 20mm + barlow is because you are not bringing it to focus - that is why you are seeing those tabs.