not sure what is happening

[mikestelfox]

hi i have just started stargazing as i got a celestron astromaster 114 eq

i have used this during the day and it gives clear images and can focus it easily

however when i used it at night i managed to find an orange coloured "star" above orions belt i have 2 pictures the second one i tryed to zoom in and i for some reason have the centre piece of my telescope is this normal it happened with both the 10mm and 20mm eyepiece's

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

when these images where seen my telescope was almost vertical pointing directly up please help me understand what has happened as i really want to become good at this stargazing stuff

[thing]

I'm only a beginner so the first one I haven't a clue, but the second just looks like an out of focus disc to me.

[barkis]

What you have there is an image of an out of focus star, as seen in the secondary mirror of your telescope. The black lines you see, are the spider vanes that hold the secondary to the tube.

If you want to take pictures this way, I would stick to the moon, at least until you have mastered the art of focusing the telescope using your camera. I assme the camera is a point and shoot type, and not a DSLR. If you intend to use the camera for taking images through the scope.

Do it through your lowest power eyepiece ie the one with the largest number whatever that is. You can't take a picture with a fixed lens camera theough the scope unless you have an eyepiece in place too. I fear that in the image with the spider showing, you did not have an eyepiece in the drawtube. Also, taking pictures this way is hard, because it is difficult to hold the camera steady during the exposure. There are special brackets available to fix the camera to the telescope to make life easier for you.

Ron.

[mikestelfox]

the picture was taken with a 20mm eyepiece in

however this was also what was visable through the eyepiece with my eye using 20mm and 10mm eyepiece when ever the "star" was out of focus is that normal

[FLO]

The star in your first image shows blue colour one side, orange the other. That is usually the result of it being close to the horizon (moisture in the air has a prismatic effect). Also, have you collimated your scope?

[mikestelfox]

unless collimated means taken out of the box then no

i will try and find a guide to it on here and let you know how i get on thanks for the help i feel so foolish

[FLO]

There's absolutely no need to feel foolish

Much of a Newtonian telescopes performance depends on its mirrors being accurately aligned to the optical axis. It sounds scary but it is actually much easier to do than you might think. A collimation tool is a good idea, it needn't be expensive, something like the Celestron collicap will do the job nicely, and it includes instructions.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Hi Mike, I assume your camera is autofocus digicam type? What I think happened is that it tried to focus and found the out of focus view that you can see if you defocus your 'scope, by setting its focus way off. This let it see something that it thought you wanted to photograph, and so it snapped it for you. For this "afocal" type of photography, its a lot easier on the camera if you try on something very bright (as in the moon) where it will work fine.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[ringz]

Another good tip is to set the camera to landscape mode. This will make the camera set the focus to infinity which means you remove one variable from the optical chain. You only have yourself to blame if you don't get the focus set correctly then

--

Martyn.

[mikestelfox]

thanks everyone for your help

just a little update on my problem.

the "star" i was looking at was mars which i verified through stellarium virtual star viewer program

i have also purchased a celestron collimation cap it was only £6 so though it was worth it just in case

i will also wait until the moon is visable again untill i try and take pictures and just practise until i get to grips with my scope

thanks again for making a new member feel welcome