Beginners' bad luck

[Trevorcrosshands]

I had a 130mm Newtonian reflector telescope bought for me Xmas time and have been disappointed with the results I've had so far. That said I've only managed to set it up outside once end of Feb due to the wet weather etc so have not had much of an opportunity to familiarise myself with it.

I have been searching for Jupiter after seeing the results on-line from other folks who own similar instruments, where it appears that Jupiter presents as a 5 or 6mm size image in the eyepiece.

So far I've only managed to find a fuzzy white blob 2 or 3mm in size and I'm pretty certain I'm focusing on the correct object. I've tried the different size eyepieces (10, 25 and a basic Barlow with little improvement. I'm clearly doing something wrong or are my expectations too high?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

[Langy]

I have the Astromaster 130EQ.

Looking at Jupiter before I packed up last night the 20mm EP gives Jupiter as a very small circle. However I can get it very sharp and can see the four moons. You must make sure that the disc is very sharp, it will also be very bright. Looking at it for a long time you can then just make out the atmosphere bands. These are often best visible when you don't look directly at Jupiter but to the side of it.

I moved up to the 8mm EP I had bought, a bigger Jupiter and no more detail. Then I stuck in the 2x Barlows to take the magnification of my 8mm to x162. Jupiter bigger again but no real improvement in detail.

Two things I can suggest is to one in daytime use the scope even if it is through your window and see if you can get focus on an object, secondly try on something like the moon. It will be easier to see that you are getting focus.

Lastly atmospheric conditions can make a big impact on how clear and how much detail you see with an object.

One viewing session probably really isn't enough to get to know your scope properly.

[oldpink]

sounds like you are out of focus
make sure you don't have a 2" camera adapter mounted and your 2" - 1.25 is mounted to your focuser

my 200 came with a 2 inch adapter mounted that stopped me from getting focus until I removed it

[RichM63]

Whether you are in focus or not, as has been mentioned, atmospheric conditions will kill details and we do have a lot of high turbulence at the moment.

For focus, try to pin point one of the moons and then center on the planet.

Rich

[AndyWB]

^-- What Rich said, persevere, conditions can be very variable. Last night I found conditions decidedly not good, and though I was able to spot some details, well, a year ago I wouldn't have.

Also, if feeling disappointed, perhaps it's worth having a look at something else to raise the spirits? The Orion Nebula, or Pleiades, or M35 always raise the spirits, and are better in much lower magnification.

What's the focal length of your scope? 

[MND]

I've only had my scope a couple of months and the first attempts were a disaster but each time it gets a bit better and easier.