UK - With some scopes :-)

[Daimo]

Afternoon,

Had a nosey round, hopefully this place will be able to help me out with questions I'll no doubt have.

Me, im 32, live in Kent, ride motorcycles, trackdays etc

Got myself a pair of 2nd hand scopes. 

So far, I've only been able to look at things through the Meade (ETX70A).  tbh, I've had a nightmare with it, spent hours trying to allign things up using the Auto setup feature (2 star).  It seems whenever I put it in the default position, it never alligns the stars in the middle, they are always off to the side/in the corner.  I've been manually adjusting them, but so far had no success.

However last night (I work nights from home sometimes), I manually lined it up with the 25mm lens, then used the 9mm lens.

Mixed emotion, pleased as I saw Jupiter, and 4 of its moons shining away.  Dissapointed, as Jupiter was still tiny, and the 4 moons were just tiny specks of light (but I knew instantly what they were).

Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was hoping it would kinda full up the eyepiece, and that I could see the colours etc. 

I tried to setup the SkyWatcher, but tbh it annoyed me as I couldn't get any allignment at all.  Might need to read those instructions I guess.

tbh, I've got idea what to expect from the above scopes, I think I expected a lot more than I actually viewed.  It says deep field etc, here I am expecting to see the Crab Neb of something, but thus far I can't see how its possible.  I guess thats an additional eyepeice job to show up the different light colouration?

Oh, I did make the mistake of looking at the moon with a 9mm lens, which resulted in a freak out session when I realised the "valleys" on the moon I was looking at, turned out to be the blue blood vessles in the back of my eye.  I stopped looking lol.  Total noob.

I think I need to get myself to a shop to see what I've got and how best to use them.

[swag72]

Welcome to SGL - You're definitely in the right place for some help and advice. I can't help much with anything on the visual side I'm afraid, I stick with imaging, but I guess that for those new to the hobby we have a lot to answer for. You see an image of jupiter for example and thing you should be able to see it in a similar way. Sadly, often not the case I think. But stick with it, some visual guys will be along soon to give you much better feedback!!

Look forward to seeing you around

[faulksy]

very nice scopes, alignment with a meade im not sure are the batterys good that can effect things drasticaly, eyepieces maybe there not good quality but with you saying you could easily reccognise it i would say there not to bad. what was the sky like seeing its called, were the stars twinkaling if so that means the atmosphere is unstable so this wouls effect what you see. you wont see much colour in any thing you will see browns and reds greys those type of colours in jupiter when conditions are good. some deep sky objects (dso) have colour the ring nebula is lovely.hope this helps. welcome to sgl by the way 

[Daimo]

Hi there, yeah but soem brand new ones in. 

Also, if I left it for say an hour, it went into sleep mode, and when awaking it, it kept saying "skewing" on the display, and would result in a reboot, hence having to set it all up again.  It got on my nerves big time lol.

Stars were not twinkling, they were really stable in light.  Conditions were clear, thats why I just went down the manual moving route (using the control unit).

tbh, I just don't know what to expect, and if its that the images I'd hoped to see, result in spending £1000's in scopes. 

Im totally new to it all, loved space for some time, and these came up via a friends friend for a half decent price (£180 the pair).  So thought it may be a good "step" into viewing space stuff.

[Daimo]

Doh, thats

PUT some new ones in.

Not long been up, fingers arn't quite responding yet haha.

[bambuko]

... Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was hoping it would kinda full up the eyepiece, and that I could see the colours etc. ...

have a look at this thread:

What Can I Expect to See?

[Daimo]

Just working my way round and found that post thank

Seems I'm your average new observer, expecting more than can be viewed.

Jupiter deffo wasn't that big or defined, you could see it was round, bright, and had 4 bright moons (and a star nearby to the left/lower corner).   That was on a 9mm lens.

I also didn't realise you had to stare down the scope for some time to get a better image (makes sense seeing as its light coming in).  But given the eyepeice position, that could end up with some dodgy back syndrome :S

I deffo need to do some more reading about it all.

[mitchelln]

Oh, I did make the mistake of looking at the moon with a 9mm lens, which resulted in a freak out session when I realised the "valleys" on the moon I was looking at, turned out to be the blue blood vessles in the back of my eye.  I stopped looking lol.  Total noob.

Welcome to the forum. You've come to the right place for help and advice! I've learned so much from this forum. It has transformed the hobby for me and everyone is so friendly. You can ask absolutely anything without worrying about what people will think.

Your line above made me laugh

[baggywrinkle]

£180 for the pair is a reasonable price.

You are not going to see big discs for the planets, but with practise your eyes will see the banding on Jupiter and the 4 main moons quite easily.

Even DSO will still appear greyish and at times you will need to use averted vision to see them better. Winter is on the way and the M42 in Orion is a very good target. Even in binos it is impressive enough. You will not get Hubble like views.

The Moon is always a good target, plenty to observe and to get your hand in.

Persistance is the keyword...

[ronl]

Hi welcome to the lounge

as with anything new read the manual a couple of times,

and change the batteries, you don't know how long they 

have been there, and if you get stuck post a question in 

the relative forum you will soon get a reply.

Good Luck and Clear Sky's 

[nytecam]

Welcome to SGL :-) I've several ETX-70s and a fair small go to scope IF setup properly :-) Use the Park Option and power off to save both alignment and batteries when having a break. I use Kodak ZC AA bats from Pound land eg maybe 3 evening sessions for £1 ! With a suitable CCD cam the ETX makes nice astrograph - see gallery (early DSOs) via link below. Good luck :-)

[SHARKuk]

Hi and welcome to the forums ... As a new to the forums and astronomer myself I can totally relate to your situation, when I first saw Saturn through my cousins scope I was expecting everything in HD lol .. When the little white ball with black dots and lines around it came into view I felt robbed. Like others have already said dont expect magazine or internet images through your scope and just think of how far the object is, if you could see America with your scope you would be amazed, the planets are many many times further away than America and you can see them live.

There are plenty of great helpful videos on the tube on setting up and using your scope, after less than one hour I could balance my scope up with ease and once the stars where out roughly align it for viewing and I never looked back.

Daz.

[todd8137]

Hi from me mise vouple of scopes

Pat

[misfit]

welcome aboard 

[JamesM]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Clear skies

James

[ronin]

The ETX 70 should be easy to align, they have a wide field of view so not getting the alighment star in reasonable view is difficult, then you centre it, press enter and it goes to the next.

You are in Kent and I cannot recall if the scope asks for Longitude in +/- or West/East.

If you are East of the meridian then it will be +ve.

Actually as you got them used I presume that you have set your own home position as a custom location? Not the previous owners location. The scopes use whatever was the last location.

If you use London it is convenient but you are not in London, small difference but then the scope assumes a different location, and Latitude and Longitude.

On a good night you will see quite a bit with the ETX, Jupiter will be a disk and you can see bands, the 4 moons show up as dots of slightly different colours. Saturn will be more difficult, thee scope simply is too short to supply the magnification. But get a decent 5mm eyepiece and try it, you might be able to use a 4mm but not really any smaller. Don't get plossl's at the short end, they simply do not work in that scope. Have one, tried it, useless. Do not even think of a 4mm plossl.

The manual is on the Meade support site, so if you don't have one download it.

[Mr Spock]

Hi, welcome to SGL

[wookie1965]

A warm welcome to SGL

[glowjet]

Hi, welcome to SGL

[Bizibilder]

Hello Daimo and welcome to SGL!!

[saturn4me]

Hi and welcome to SGL!

[Pig]

Hello & welcome

Shaun

[lars1967]

Hello from Lars

[Stephen Green]

 Hi welcome to the SGL

   Stephen

[blacky]

Hello Daimo and welcome to SGL

Laura