OK my first problem is....

[night-vision]

I have bought a used Celestron 130eq a few weeks ago which came with a 20mm&10mm eyepiece.I seen a few stars and the moon very clear,so i decided to focus on jupiter,but when i looked at it it was just like a small tiny bright blob with 4 tiny tiny dots around it. So i thought i needed more power and bought a selection of eyepieces ranging from 15,6 and x2 barlow and it still looked the same so i read about a collimation tool to allign the mirrors(which were out of line when i looked with the tool). Now everything looks lined up using the tool and i could see better detail stars and clusters now but jupiter is still the same bright tiny blob. Can anyone shed any light on this as ive searched that some people can see it like a 5 pence coin with colour etc. It just doesnt seem to have the magnification. Ps the scope has a 650mm focal length.

Dean

[Leo.A]

I don't have the information you require but that's the same reflector I have and that's the same view I get.

Perhaps it's a limitation of the scope size, perhaps some images you have seen have been enhanced?

It could also have a lot to do with the seeing conditions.

I found a pic posted online, taken through the same scope, it isn't overly impressive, not that I think I'd do better.

http://www.celestronimages.com/data/media/2/Jupiter2mod2.jpg

[John]

Jupiter is still a bit low in the sky to get good views of it and it's surface features from where I am in the UK. It's just (I mean within the last hour) reached an altitude where I've been able to start picking out some details of the cloud bands and the Great Red Spot (which is very pale indeed at the moment). That was with my ED120 refractor at 180x (Pentax XW eyepiece). It's going to get better as it rises earlier and earlier over the coming weeks.

Visually, Jupiters features will never be as distinct as you see in the photos. The 2 main cloud bands are reasonably clear but more cloud bands and more delicate and subtle features take some practice and good seeing conditions to discern.

Generally I've found that Jupiter does not respond well to extreme magnification. Tonight 150x and 180x was showing the surface features much more readily than 225x or 257x even though the latter showed a larger planetary disk. A smaller but sharper and more contrasty image is much better than a larger but mushy one, I find.

Spend time at the eyepiece on Jupiter when it's higher in the sky and don't overdo the magnification and a 130mm scope should show a fair amount of surface detail as your eye becomes practiced in teasing it out.

It won't look large in the eyepiece or show more than very subtle colours though.

[Qualia]

I appreciate your concern, Night-vision and there's some really sound comments given by John.

Just to add more food for thought, as a general rule of thumb the brightness of an object will decline as you up the magnification. If I up the mag twofold, say, I'm reducing the image brightness by a factor of four. If I keep on doing this eventually details just disappear. On the other hand, increasing the mag does make detail more apparent, so, as you can appreciate, we're now at a trade-off: will increasing magnification gain more detail even though I'm making the object fainter?

I've found that playing around with this trade-off - dependent on the evening's seeing - does make a difference. Even as little as 1mm increase or decrease in the mag - about 10% to 15% difference of magnification - can be quite surprising. It's for this reson that with the planets I try to have a 5mm, 6mm, 7mm, and a barlowed 18mm on hand. You'll probably find that on a decent night your sweet spot is around 140x to 160x.

There's a lot of stunning photos of Jupiter and you suggest that you've read folk saying it will look like a five pence coin with colour in the eyepiece. Sure, those photos are nice to look at but as an observer it isn't what you are going to see. You'll get colour but rather than a five-pence piece, I'd say it's s going to look like a pea and the moons are going to look like very bright stars.

But don't be disheartened. This is really remarkable when you think about it. You've got a 5" telescope, a bit of mirror and glasss, reaching out across the universe some 675,000,000 kilometers. You will be able to see the Great Red Spot, those delicate reddish-brown belts, a darker, greyer hue to the Polar regions, and so on. You'll be able to trace the movement of the Jovian moons and observe their play of shadows over Jupiter in times of their transit or of their eclipses by Jupiter's own shadow etc. From time to time, if you want to enhance that colour, maybe a light blue filter will work nicely, others suggest a filter at Wratten 11 or 12.

If you can, try to sit with Jupiter for a peaceful twenty minutes or so on your observation sessions and gradually, bit by bit, you'll come to appreciate its subtle, yet dynamic features which have taken around 40 minutes to reach you. I've been following Jupiter since late July and every week the seeing is getting better and the moons are getting brighter, stay with it and as the weeks go by you will notice quite a difference.

This site and its Java script may also be of interest: Jupiter and his moons.

Clear skies to you, Night Vision

[cotterless45]

Well said and an advocate of my 140x-160x.

I've looked through all sorts of scopes , when folk have used silly magnifications. There's focus shift and "wait it'll come into view".They are usually quite surprised at what happens when you back off the magnification and spend some time to tease out details. However, I do find that Mars needs a bit more to get detail, nice,

Nick.

[Capricorn]

Suspect that the 10mm is simply too low a magnification (65x) in your scope and that the amount of light gathered means that the disk, being small, is swamped with light and looks white.

Could be the atmosphere, is it is bad then the image is bad and the image is smudged and again no detail.

Also make sure the collimation is OK, if that is out then no decent image.

Doubt if Jupiter evers appears as a 5p piece, unless a 5p piece about 1/2Km away. It is a bit like fish - that one that got away was HUGE, really HUGE. You can see banding and therefore some colour on Jupiter with a moderate scope, it doesn't jump out but is discrenable (just).

Solution is probably MONEY, get a decent 5mm, BST, TMB and give that a try. Is there any chance of anyone near to you to loan you something like one? Jupiter is OK at 80x and 120x area. A 5mm will deliver 130x.

Just in case you got the scope with the 10mm and a barlow I would suspect the present 10mm and a barlow combination will be worthless.

Other option (more money) is a decent refractor. :eek:

[Capricorn]

What time were you looking?

Jupiter is still pretty low

[Solar_observer]

it was a good night for me last night in skem, the seeing was good but more so the transparency (which i think is more important) was the best ive seen for a long time. ive a 130mm sw and was using ONLY 2 ep.....20mm gso & 8mm vixen npl. the ring nebula, dumbell, hercules cluster and m71 looked fantastic in both ep but it was jupiter i was waiting for. ive loved astronomy since i was a kid and my favourite object was (and always will be) this stunning planet. ive never had a scope until now and since jupiter has only started to show itself again, this was my first sight EVER with my own eyes and scope. at around half 12 last night it cleared the tree so its still low in the sky really (but i couldnt wait any longer) 20mm put in, telrad centered on jupiter.....here we go focus.....focus....(heart was racing).....WOW...what a view, so bright including all her moons, just hanging there in the ep. could JUST about make out 2 main bands but very subtle indeed. the longer i stayed, the more i saw. my heart started to race again as i reached for my vixen 8mm ........EVEN BIGGER WOW....the moons stayed the same, a tad bigger (which i expected) but jupiter just became what i imagined as a boy. the bands where more prominent but still needed teasing out a little and there.....THERE was the GRS. this feature of this planet has always had me in awe and to finally see it myself, albeit being very very pale and having to spend a good few mins teasing it out, was OUTSTANDING. this view was at 112 magnification so i cant wait to get in closer. anyway im boring you all now...lol BUT its views and wonders like this, why astronomy is such rewarding and wonderfull hobby.

tony

[Stu]

I tend to agree with the comments re magnification, around x150 to x180 often works well with Jupiter in my 106mm. In the 66mm, between x97 and x129 I can get the GRS and shadow transits when it is higher in the sky and seeing is reasonable.

Have yet to get the mak on it this year but that may take a little more, and it's great on the goto not having to continually nudge the scope. The other great thing about the mak is zero image shift even at very high power (x400), makes keeping things centred much easier

Stu

[todd8137]

It's the size of your scope who sees it the size of a coin?

[night-vision]

Thank you all for the quick responses. The only thing i can do is do a fine tune collimation on a star. It seems to be lacking magnification on very distant objects with no detail(moon seems ok).

I wish i could see through another similer scope to compare.i`ve tried viewing jupiter at about 11pm and 3am but still the same.

[Grotemobile]

Hi,i have a C11 scope & the sweet spot is using a

13 mm EP.This gives me a mag of 215 which is spot

on. The main thing is to get a good quality EP .

Baader Hyperion 68 deg EPs come out to about

£100, but are worth every penny.A good EP is

a must.

Steve.