A very enthusiastic newbie

[Evolocia]

Hi guys,

My name is Chris, I'm 25 and from the Nottinghamshire area of England.

Growing up I've always been fascinated by the stars and planets and have recently started a three year course studying Astrophysics and Cosmology at degree level.

I've never owned a telescope until my fiance gave baught me one for my birthday last week. I now have a Skywatcher 130 and can't put it down. As I've had the need to look up most of my life I pretty much instantly went out thinking "how hard can it be" and attempted to look through the lens... FAIL!

After a few more attempts however, tonight, I've found Jupiter and managed to see it in pretty awesome detail. I managed it though a super 10mm lens coupled with a barlow lens...

I suppose my first question to you guys is. Any tips on using the telescope, what are the best lenses to view smaller stars and planets?

[jonathan]

Stars will always just be little dots, you may notice some doubles have a large star and a small star, the aim there will be to split the more difficult double stars (be able to see both stars rather than one big star).

Planets, you will only generally see any detail on Jupiter and Saturn, Venus and others will just be discs that you may be able to make out the phase on (especially Venus). Hunting for the smaller planets may require dark skies and lots of patience...

Your 25mm eyepiece is your best friend, you should be able to see plenty of detail, sometimes more than you can through a 10mm (which are often affected by poor seeing conditions much more obviously than 25mm). Aim to own at least a 25mm, 10mm, and 38mm or around those sizes (larger eyepiece may only be available as 2" versions instead of 1.25", so you'd have to have a 2" star diagonal for those). A single good quality eyepiece should always give you better views than an eyepiece and a barlow which results in the same magnification.

You might be able to use an 8mm with your 130, not sure as I don't have a newtonian but they are no doubt faster than my 8" SCT (f10)

A good quality selection of eyepieces should see you right, spend some time finding out which ones would work best in your scope - there will be a point of diminishing returns on which eyepieces you should use so don't go buying the best that money can buy because your scope probably wouldn't be able to get the best out of them. Celestron X-Cel are well rated, a ~25mm and 8 or 10mm in this range should be a very good starting point. Not sure what comes with the 130, the 25mm might be OK. My Celestron 8SE came with a Celestron 25mm Plossl, it's been a good eyepiece for my scope so I haven't replaced it.

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

Congratulations on your scope, welcome to the forum, and happy birthday!

There is too much advice to fit in one reply, but a few important bits - let the scope cool down before going for high mag views of planets etc. secondly, it's not all about magnification. A bigger image doesnt mean a better image, generally planets are best around 150x or so, maybe a touch more, but 200x will only really be good on the best of nights when the atmosphere plays ball. Thirdly, things are big, much bigger than you think. For instance, andromeda, our nearest galaxy, takes up about the same amount of sky as six full moons!

I'm sure others will give some good advice, this forum is a great place to learn. But for now i'm off to bed, just finished a 12 hour shift and i have another one to do in 8 hours time.

[Charon]

Welcome aboard Chris.

[Ganymede12]

Welcome to SGL Chris!

You'll find yourself coming on here every day now that you've joined! Here, you ask a question and then get an answer!

If you haven't already got it, I'd suggest buying Turn Left at Orion (TLAO). It's a very useful book that helps you find objects and gives you two sketches of the object (The view through a 90mm refractor and the view through a 200mm reflector). I never go outside without mine!

[sologuitarist61]

Hello Chris and welcome to SGL, have fun with your new scope.

[Mr Spock]

Hi Chris, welcome to SGL

[Evolocia]

Wow thanks folks.

I already own TLAO as i also had this for a b/day present. I also have a few map charts and old school charts. Without knowing exactly what lenses i have all i can do is type what it says on them (like a noob lol)

I have

- Super 25 wide angle long eye relief

- Super 10mm

- Barlow lens 2x (I take it the 2x means twice magnification??)

I find that the 25 is the best for initial sky scanning, adding the barlow to it gives great detail and makes it harder to watch (as things move faster in the smaller area you can see).

I found last night that to see jupiter the best was definately the 10 and the barlow combined. the overall size once focused was about the same as the 25/barlow but it gave a much sharper picture. It was very clear seeing the storm lines there, but i never saw the giant red spot. I can only assume it was on the other side of the planet.

One problem I'm having with my skywatcher is its quite unstable. I hope its just because of user error but simple things like focusing the picture and the image vibrates for around 4 seconds afterwards. Have i left something loose or is this the issue with star gazing in general?

[Starlight 1]

Hi & Welcome Chris.

[saturn4me]

Hi Chris and welcome to SGL!

[michigander]

Welcome to SGL, Chris!

Dana

[stellawolf]

Hi & welcome to SGL

[wookie1965]

Hello and welcome to SGL fill the legs with sand that will help with stability a bit mine did the same now only shakes for a second if you want to get eyepieces get a good high power medium and low maybe a 32mm 18mm and 8mm that will keep you going for ages and if you get the aperture bug the same eyepieces can be used in that scope aswell.

[Rustmonkey]

Hi and welcome.

i am gonna assume by your "instability" issue that you have it on an Equatorial Mount and then assume that it's probably an EQ1???

they are a very budget mount but with a bit of prep can be quite stable. Make sure everything is tightened up properly. Ignore the RA & Dec rings which are pointless. Just point the front leg towards Polaris and your away.

If you can, hang a weighted bag under the mount to make it more stable and if you have a grassed area, then dig the feet into the grass slightly.

for a beginner, the SW eyepieces are adequate. If I was gonna make an eyepiece purchase, I would go for a Vixen NPL 30mm. A nice widefield EP that when Barlowed will also give you 15mm. This will give you a nice set to start with.

biggest thing to remember is that you will never see the nebulas and DSOs like you see in the pictures. Most are no more than very feint fuzzy blurs even with much wider apertures. For planetary observing you will enjoy nice views in clear skies.

also remember that the darker the sky you can find, the better the views you will get. Light pollution is a real killer for DSOs so get out and find a safe dark site where you can enjoy a relaxed uninterrupted observing session.

TLAO is a great book and will teach you the skies. You sound young so I would be surprised if you don't own an IOS or Android phone. Some good apps that are either cheap or free to download. I use Sky Safari, Sky Walk and a few others. They are great for referring too in the field.

Enjoy your new found hobby and don't forget to include your Girlfrend......this will pay dividends in the future when the aperture fever sets in and you want a bigger scope. ;p

[JamesF]

Welcome to SGL.

For the moment the 25mm will generally be best for viewing clusters, nebulae and galaxies and will usually be easiest to use for finding most objects, whereas the 10mm and barlow will probably be more useful for planetary and lunar viewing. I'd probably stick with them for a while until you get the hang of things, but as others have already said, a couple more to broaden the range may well be useful. Once you have a bit of experience you'll have a clearer idea of what you think you're missing or what you need most. I'd say a budget of around £50 or thereabouts per eyepiece is not unreasonable to get something of good quality.

James

[jonathan]

An upgrade to something like the Omni CG-4 mount and tripod (now available with thicker legs) should go a long way towards solving your stability woes.. I have this mount and it's a joy to use, very stable with a small to medium scope.

You will quickly learn that this hobby always has another potential purchase just around the corner!

[gingergeek]

Hi there and welcome to SGL

[Welrod50]

Hello Chris and welcome to the lounge

I have a SW 130 (and am shortly going to add a Celestron Nexstar 102 GO-TO refractor).

The 130 is an excellent starter scope and I echo most of what's already been said. So far as mount stability goes, the optical tube is quite long and not that lightweight itself which makes vibrations worse. Just make sure you tighten the legs up at the hinges and I also put the shelf on with a heavy tool bag on it. So long as all the nuts and bolts are tight, the vibration becomes much quicker to settle.

Good luck with the scope

Clear skies!

Scott.

[JamesM]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Congratulations on getting the scope and lets hope the weather plays along too for to start bagging more targets. On the subject of eyepieces, some good advice above regarding choice and would recommend that you read Warthog's introduction to eyepieces entitled "Eyepieces - The very least you need" which can be found as the very first entry in the Beginners Help and Advice Section. Very well explained along with some simple maths that will help you tailor eyepiece focal lengths with that of your own scope. When other recommendation would be to assign yourself to a local observing group where it might be possible to borrow other people's eyepieces to see the difference for yourself. Always better to 'try before you buy' if you can, as well as receiving some good tips and joining in with an observing groups is also beneficial for hints on star hopping along with the possibility of escaping light pollution by observing from a dark site - the one single thing that you can do to improve the view you can see.

Clear skies and enjoy the forum

James

[Tinker1947]

Welcome to SGL, Chris

[Aenima]

Wow thanks folks.

I already own TLAO as i also had this for a b/day present. I also have a few map charts and old school charts. Without knowing exactly what lenses i have all i can do is type what it says on them (like a noob lol)

I have

- Super 25 wide angle long eye relief

- Super 10mm

- Barlow lens 2x (I take it the 2x means twice magnification??)

I find that the 25 is the best for initial sky scanning, adding the barlow to it gives great detail and makes it harder to watch (as things move faster in the smaller area you can see).

I found last night that to see jupiter the best was definately the 10 and the barlow combined. the overall size once focused was about the same as the 25/barlow but it gave a much sharper picture. It was very clear seeing the storm lines there, but i never saw the giant red spot. I can only assume it was on the other side of the planet.

One problem I'm having with my skywatcher is its quite unstable. I hope its just because of user error but simple things like focusing the picture and the image vibrates for around 4 seconds afterwards. Have i left something loose or is this the issue with star gazing in general?

Hello Chris, and welcome.

I have the 130p explorer and unfortunately the wobbles are normal due to the telescope being the maximum weight for the mount to begin with, skywatcher usually sell combo's that are already at their limit mount-wise.

No matter, as has already been said, there are a few tips and tricks to pimp up your mount to lessen the wobbles - not extending the bottom part of the tripod, weighing it down, even adding extra rivets to the plastic moulding that holds each leg or replacing the tray with a more solid invention of your own. Otherwise you can always adapt and learn to live with the vibrations, observing with a chair and compensating by making careful adjustments - it becomes second nature after a while.

When thinking of things to buy make sure the essentials are covered first. A collimator is one of those essentials, to keep your optics in alignment. A red light torch for maintaining night vision. Possibly a compass......etc. These kind of things should come first, then your basics are covered for general purposes.

With the 130mm reflector, your 10mm eyepiece together with a x2 barlow will be sufficient magnification for planets and close lunar views, its reaching the maximum you can push the optics of that size aperture - on average nights - later a x4 imagemate (or similar quality) barlow for clear dark nights may allow for more magnification. I think, in general, its probably better to use a x2 barlow with a 10mm EP than to use a 5mm EP - due to the barlow increasing focal length. Though you can easily try it out at a later date.

Most of all enjoy the hobby and have fun, you'll soon be thinking of your next purchase - a bigger scope, most likely and experimenting is the best way to find out what suits you and where your going next. Who knows, you might want to start taking pictures of the things you see through your scope at night.

Whatever happens you'll find lots of good advice from the members here, I know I have.

All the best

Regards

Aenima

[dwc]

Hello and welcome to SGL

[MorningMajor]

Hi Chris and welcome from me too

[Bizibilder]

Hello Chris and welcome to SGL!!

[todd8137]

Hi from me