Confused & Disheartened

[Ally8446]

Having recently acquired a 6.5mm Celestron Omni plossl which is obviously better quality than those supllied with my scope, and yet, I JUST CAN'T GET A SHARP VIEW OF SATURN. I allowed approx 90 minutes for the scope to cool, also ample time for my eyes to dark adapt. I have been told on SGL that my scope is good enough to get a nice crisp image (albeit very small, which is fine incidentally, not looking for size) of the likes of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars even. So where am I going wrong ? If the scope wasn't collimated properly I wouldn't be able to distinguish anything surely ? Not about to give up on my new hobby cos I absolutely love it, just need a little encouragement. Thanks in advance chaps & chirps:confused:

[mdstuart]

Odd..You should see a sharp image of saturn about the size of a penny coin held at arms length. Bright white with a sharp edge to it..

Around it you should see the rings which will look like one continuos band and you should see the dark between the planet and the rings.

You should easily spot the moon titan nearby...check stellarium to see where it should be..

From time to time if you watch and seeing is good you will spot dark bands on the planet and a few of the other brighter moons..

So why not? Have you checked that the focus is good? Try pointing at the pole star..Its a double so you should see a bright white full stop star and a fainter dot nearby. Both should be just dots..If thats good Saturn should be good..

Try again tonight...

Mark

[Ally8446]

Thanks Mark, will try again tonight

[squeaky]

Look up bahtinov mask

There are sites that will enable you to print one tuned to your scope. Such as: astrojargon - Bahtinov Focusing Mask Generator: Version 0.4

Focus on a bright star using the mask (lock, or don't ruddy touch your focus again ) and then move to your target.

If it's still a lousy view you must have a problem somewhere.

[ollypenrice]

It's probably just the seeing, the stability of the air. For the planets this is what matters, not transparency. Some of the best seeing comes with a fine haze, in fact.

Olly

[Ally8446]

Thanks for the input guys. Will try again tonight

[cotterless45]

Yo, you'll find that above evrything else, seeing conditions are the most imprtant factor in clear views.

Nick.

[umadog]

90 minutes is more than enough time to cool your scope, so it's not going to be that. A night when the seeing is poor will definitely lead to a blurrier view. You can tell when the seeing is bad because the planetary image dances about at lot. Bright stars look like furry balls at higher power. On those nights you won't get a good image of Saturn.

If the scope isn't properly collimated you will get a more blurry view with the detail gone. Even in good seeing, a scope with poorly aligned optics will produce a blurry image. However, an uncollimated scope will not produce an indistinguishable mess. I would definitely check the collimation if I were you. Your scope is f/5 and at that focal ratio the collimation begins to become pretty critical. The faster the optics the more critical the collimation. Here is an example of the difference it can make: http://arnholm.org/astro/collimation/index.html

[JamesF]

Might be sensible to have a look at something in the distance during the day, too, in case there's a fault with the eyepiece. Can't see why there would be, but if you can get a nice image of something terrestrial during the day then at least you can go out at night confident in your kit.

James

[SFlowers]

Our view was much better after we collimated our scope properly and we found this had quite an effect on how we could see the planets.

[umadog]

Indeed, it can very easily make the difference between a featureless blob and surface details.

[John]

This does sound like a collimation issue. A newtonian will still show things like deep sky objects reasonably well even when out of collimation but planetary viewing is very exacting so things need to be "on song" to get those sharp contrasty views and subtle details.