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Disappointed newb with lots of questions


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Hello all….

Ok I just got a new Orion XT8 scope with the stock 25mm Plossl (sp?) eyepiece along with a Barlow 2x. My wife and I were all excited about what we were going to be able to see! Saturn, Mars, nebulas etc!! Oh My!

Well I took the scope out, using the EZ Finder I pointed the scope to the brightest star I could find at first and went to take a look. And was disappointed. Thru the eyepiece it didn’t look any different than looking at it with the naked eye. Sure the image was a tad bit crisper but that’s it. All the stars in the sky looked that way. So using my IPhone I found where Saturn was and pointed the scope towards it. I was expecting to see the outline of the planet and possibly the rings however all I saw was as bright dot that didn’t look any different than a star. I messed with the focuser but it didn’t help any. So being totally bummed out we brought everything back in and called it a night….so here I am looking for help!

So I have a few questions that hopefully someone will be able to help me with.

  • What am I doing wrong?
  • What can I do to increase the size of the image in the eyepiece? I have seen great pics of Saturn and other objects take from a 6T and an 8T but I just don’t understand how the image in the picture was so large.
  • I should be able to see easily with the stock eyepiece right?
  • There is some light pollution in my back yard but its not a huge amount. Would this affect my viewing that much?

Thank you very much for your help! I have always loved the stars and planets and I hope to be able to view them someday!

Matt

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Hi Matt. With an 8" scope you should be seeing more than just a bright dot. You should be picking up the rings at least. If it was just a bright dot then it probably wasn't Saturn. New people do however get a false impression when starting out by thinking that you will see Hubble quality images. ( I must admit to being a little dissapointed myself when I looked through my scope for the first time). Keep persevering and try not to be too disheartened. Experiment with the barlow as well. With an 8" scope you will definately get some great views when you get to grips with it.

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Hi Matt, there will be lots of people on here that can offer you advise in regards to how your telescope can be used to get more satisfying results, however, did you just use the 25mm on its own in the eyepiece?

The 25mm is very much a wide view of the sky and is normally used as the initial eyepiece to line up on an object (even with goto scopes) before switching to a stronger EP optic. Did you use the x2 barlow in combination with the 25mm which would have had a greater magnification effect on the focal length of the scope?

I hope that this has been of some use as i am a total beginner myself with the only use of scopes at my local Astro club so far.

Clear skies

Simon.

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I would guess that you missed saturn, as even with a smaller scope you would have made out the disk and rings, down load the free software called stellarium this will show you what is in your night sky.

Be aware that when you see image`s on the internet, these will look a lot bigger due to the nature if imaging, hope this helps

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Stars are points no matter what scope or magnification you use, they will always be just points.

To increase the size of something like Saturn you need more magnification, also a decent image to see any detail. For Saturn I find that 100x - 120x is required. The scope is 1200mm focal length so a 12mm or 10mm eyepiece. The 25mm and barlow should also be about right.

For the nebulas etc you need first to find them, start with a long focal length eyepiece, The 25mm is fair a 32 may be better, once found then increase the magnification, I would suggest something like a 12mm eyepiece. Nebulas and such like tend to be faint to start with and magnifying them can result in something that is fainter and blurry.

One idea is to start with a few clusters - patches of stars the Pleiades being the obvious. For the Pleiades you may have to initially limit yourself to 50x, the 25mm eyepiece as you will not get them all in otherwise.

Next, if the image is simply never really sharp you may have to collimate the scope, get all the mirrors and the eyepiece into alignment. Fiddly but with a little care should not be a problem. There are guides - try astro-baby.com. Ultimatly this will require a tool called a collimator. Thin A-B shows how to make a simple tool to use as an alternative, not as accurate but better then nothing.

Additional eyepieces: you will need a few. I think the minimum is 4. For your scope it would be 6mm, 8mm, 15mm and 32mm. I say a 6mm as everyone waants the most they can get. 6mm will be about it for your scope and conditions, AND you will not use it all that often, hence the 8mm for the majority of the time. At first and if you were not driven by magnification then 8mm. 10mm, 15mm, 32mm.

Add in a collimator (£30) and this starts to get expensive, you are looking at around £150-200 to get a few more bits.

By the way the images you see are all taken with long exposure imaging systems and then processed. Planets may show a little colour, if fortunate, all nebula etc are grey and not much detail to the eye. Thats why they are called faint fuzzies.

Have a search for circumpolar constellations then get a book of something to find out what DSO's (the faint fuzzies) are in them. Wikipedia is a good source.

P.S. The barlow may be poor and so gives a poor image, not sure about what comes with the Orion range, with most others the 2x barlow is dubious. :grin: :grin:

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Don't be to disappointed - find saturn and i'm sure you will be both thrilled with the view - jupiter is another fine sight which we be up to see in a few weeks and of course look at the moon - that will blow your socks off!

andrew

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You'll figure it out. My first telescope was a refurbished $30.00 USD Meade 80 mm refractor, and when I found and focused Saturn...it was crystal clear and almost looked fake. Like a glowing sticky that kids put on their cielings. My girifriend cried when she saw it. lol

So if I can see saturn that easily with a cheap ol 80mm refrac....you'll see it too. Don't give up, the reward is priceless

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I picked out Saturn the other night with a 32mm and 2X Barlow. It was deffo unmistakeably saturn at that magnification. I then just popped in my 6mm and wow.... There she was as big and as clear as you like. Even with your 25mm and barlow you would of seen saturn if you were 100% sure that you were looking at it and not just a star by mistake. :rolleyes:

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Have you alinged your EZ finder with your scope, focus your scope on a distant daytime object and adjust the finder so they are looking at the same point, you may be looking at a nearby star and not Saturn

I can see Saturn and rings with my small 90mm scope so your views will be far superior when its sorted

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With limited experience I can tell you it's all about patience and planning to start with.

As previously said find your target on a star map or stellarium, these thing are free on the web. So now you know where Saturn is in the night sky and you know that your finder is in alignment with the main scope you should be able to locate it with your low power eyepiece - 25mm. Even with the 25mm you should be able to see the shape of the disk and rings when focussed. Now when you have that baby focussed and centered you can start to up the power a bit. You didn't mention having a higher power eyepiece but if you have anything with a lower value e.g. 10mm (lower value =higher power) swap it with the 25mm and you should have your wow moment. Again i'm sill a newbie but i'm guessing that you may have mistaken the star Spica for Saturn.

Read all of the stickies or pinned items on the beginners section of this board and also try reading as many of the beginner posts and answers on here as you can.

Good luck.

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Hi Matt,

I had a similar problem when I got my new scope. One reason for my initial poor viewing was a duff Barlow, but I think the main problem for me was expecting too much too soon. So now I'm not expecting to see the images posted on the internet, and its becoming more enjoyable. If it would only stop raining here.

Some advice I was given:

Ensure your scope and eyepieces have ample time to cool down;

Ensure your eyes have time to adjust to dark conditions;

Dont hang on to the scope, as it makes it wobble;

My own piece of advice would be:

Invest in a TAL 2x Barlow;

10mm, 15mm and 32mm eyepieces a must;

Get your wife involved, as it's good to have someone to run back indoors and make the coffee whilst your viewing.

Good luck and enjoy your scope.

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After the moon - Saturn and Jupiter are the easiest objects to pick out in the sky on a clear night. If you didn't see the rings with your set up then you definitely weren't looking at it - sounds like you had another star which (as mentioned above) will allways be just a pinpoint of light.

You needn't feel disappointed though - every newbie has finding difficulties at first - we all went through that stage. I'd suggest you get yourself orientated at first. Some basic things you need to know include finding the constellations of the Plough and Cassiopoeia from which you can easilly determine the position of the Pole Star. With that you will know which direction North is. Then turn round 180 to face South. Now East is on the left and West is on the right. All planets roughly follow the Ecliptic which is an imaginary line across the sky from East to West. So any planet hunting will be somewhere along that line depending on the time of year.

Now all you need to do is find which constellation your planet is in, and pick the brightest star nearest your planet in that constellation from which to hop to your chosen object. Stellarium is great for identifying constellations and finding the line of the Ecliptic. Everything else revolves around the pole star, Plough and Cass will allways be visible in the Northern Hemisphere cos they are close to it. Other constellations will rise in the East and set in the West depending on the time of year.

Ensure your finder is aligned with the scope using a 15mm or 10mm eyepiece - this will give you the accuracy required to pinpoint most stuff. Do this in the daytime on a distant object like a church spire or pylon 1-2 miles distant. Hope that helps and good luck :)

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hi Matt,welcome to sgl.

have downloaded http://www.stellarium.org/ its the best freebie on the web and will help you to locate objects.

you have purchased a very nice 1ST scope, which will provide some very pleasing views, but not of everything.there are many things to look at the moon will be outstanding lots of surface detail. Saturn, Jupiter, mars, Venus, again pretty good, there are lots clusters that are easy to see as well.

i suppose it will be the galaxies and nebula's that you may find the most disappointing, mostly just misty smudges really.but even these can provide some pretty good views m27,m31,m42,m57 etc...

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Hmmmm. Never thought of getting the wife involved and running in and getting coffee's or better still running in and getting the bottle of Single Malt and a glass. :grin:

I tried training the Border Collie to fetch the biscuits, but for some reason when I call him back there were none left - strange that. :rolleyes:

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To keep costs down and get yourself started I would suggest you get yourself a revelation eyepiece kit. It has a set of plossl EPs from 32mm through to 9mm and a decent 2x Barlow. It also has a set of colour filters which are handy for looking at the planets. it costs about £130 new (a few have turned up on eBay recently though) £130 may sound like keeping the costs down, but it's a lot cheaper than buying 1 by 1 and gives you enough flexibility to do most things with your scope. http://www.firstlightoptics.com/eyepiece-sets/revelation-photo-visual-eyepiece-kit.html

Once you get Saturn can I suggest you look for m81 and m82, 2 nearby galaxies in the north, one shows it's spiral, the other is edge on. Both show up well in a 8" scope.

Just you wait until Orion is up an a few months ;-)

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images are bigger online because the camera does not use an eyepiece.

for the quick and easy, you can pop a webcam (with lens removed) into your focuser.

plug into laptop/pc and record the images the scope is pointing at.

from there it is nearly always software based to get a good picture/image/photogaph.

i have a little 3 inch scope and can just make out saturns rings, fuzzy but just see them.

cannot say enough that aligning your finder scope to the telescope is very much needed.

am sure the people that align in factory are crosseyed blind men.

pop scope outside and focus onto a distant object. then carefuly adjust finderscope to the same object.

you will find the object ie: star , planet nebula is somewhere in the field of view in telescope but may need a little adjustment to get it bang on centre of eyepiece.

if you cannot get a pc/laptop to help find objects the "skymap" android app is a helpful tool.

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Hi,

You say that the image in VOF calculator is small but dont forget your eye is less than an inch or so away from the image in the eyepiece and its probably close to 2 feet or more away from your monitor screen, not sure but this may make the difference.

Kev.

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Hi,

Ijust put your scope (Orion Skyquest 12 XT8) into String FOV Calculator (http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm)

and Saturn does in fact look like a dot, Even with the 2 x Barlowit doesnt appear much better, Then I put in a 5mm eyepiece and that was much better.

It appears your eyepice is the problem,

Hope this helps.

Kev.

12dstring fov calculator is really good for showing the scale of deep sky objects with various imaging equipment, but for visual is can be a bit misleading. The solar system objects do seem way smaller than they actually appear. That said, planets never look 'as big as you like'. They are almost always pretty small. The other somewhat confusing thing for newbies is that the deep sky images shown are all long exposure photographs and absolutely nothing like what you will actually see. It is a great web site but you do need to be realistic in what you expect to see.

As others have said, the 25mm with the barlow should definitely show you Saturn's rings and a few moons so either you weren't in focus or you were looking at a nearby star. It is quite easy to miss your target since the actual field of view of a 1200mm scope is pretty small. Try aligning the finder in the daytime using a far off TV aerial or something. Keep at it because you have a great scope. :)

Give this site a go to give you some idea what you should be able to see. (note the magnifications used!) http://www.backyardvoyager.com/eyepieceviews.html

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