DSO,Planet or both

[Bungielad]

Hi all,

Got my Celestron skymaster 15x70 today and gave them a check over to see if all was correct with them......they seem fine!

When looking at Andromida M31 seen it no problem and had good veiws, also looking at Orion neb had really good views but, when trying to look at Jupiter it looked all washed out with no detail at all.

I checked both barrels with closing one eye then the other......in the left barrel Jupiter looked like a distant star...eg ..a pin of light and in the right barrel it looked out of focus but bigger.

I tried to focus the right barrel but it only made Jupiter look the same as the other barrel......"a distant star" or slightly bigger but still with no detail at all.

Are these bins better for DSO or should they be good for both??

Or is there something I'm missing???

Bungielad.

[rowan46]

binoculars don't have the magnification for real planetary observation unless you get the large ones with the interchangeable eyepieces. you should see the galileon moons but you will not get any real planetary detail

[Nakedgun]

rowan46 is right. Even a spotting scope at 60x will only just show Jupiter's Northern and Southern equatorial belts. You'll need a regular telescope for planetary work. But, by all means your binos can sweep-up a tremendous number of DSOs, provided dark skies.

[Joves]

I was looking at Jupiter through 18x50's a couple of nights ago. You should see it more clearly than just a distant star. It should absolutely be disk shaped and you should see its four Galilean moons nearby (now, these will most certainly look like distant stars!).

Rowan and Nakedgun are spot on, you're not going to see any banding detail. Still a nice object to observe with bino's though!

[Bungielad]

Cheers for the clear up folks, I can now put my mind at rest.

Bungielad.

[themos]

Don't know what time you looked at Jupiter but it rises quite late. I had a look at it around 11pm and it was still very low. Couldn't make out any banding on it at that altitude with my Revelation 15x70 either.

[Bungielad]

I was looking about 12.30am and couldn't see much but iv recently discovered a problem with the bins anyway so that wouldn't help either.

After reading the above posts I'm not expecting to much anyway from planets.

Bungielad.

[Joves]

Don't discount how nice Saturn will look through your newies

[ollypenrice]

Not all bins, by any means, will give a really clean single disk on planets. It's a hard test.

Olly

[Joves]

I guess I've just been fortunate with the couple of bins I've really taken a good look through.