Eyepiece advice

[Madgexox]

hi everyone

I am new to astronomy and I've been given a skywatcher skyliner 200p scope.

The lenses that came with the scope are a 10mm (x120 mag) and 25mm wide angle long eye relief (x48 mag)

My problem is that I don't seem to be able to see as much as this forum and other places on the net suggests I should, e.g. Jupiter - I can see a small ball of light and 4 pin pricks of light for its moons

I was expecting to be able to see a larger image of Jupiter and pick out more of the planet's detail.

Can anyone suggest what other lenses that I should purchase? Or any other ideas as to how I can improve the imagery?

Any advice is greatly appreciated,

Thanks in advance!

Mairead

[Moonshane]

hi there

are you leaving the scope to cool down outside for maybe an hour before viewing at high power (100x or more)?

if not then this will improve the images.

you can look at lower powers more quickly.

this makes  big difference to what you see. if you received a moon or light pollution filter this will help to reduce glae a little.

[Northern Soul man]

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm

Hi Ya Madgexox and a very warm welcome to the SGL, if you use this link to a site that gives you a simulation of what you can see through any given Eyepiece in any given telescope, I've just put an 8mm focal length Eyepiece in your scope and you can just make out the two main cloud bands on Jupiter - this may help you a little as to what you can expect to see - a lot of people use it on here as a guide to what telescope and Eyepiece combination is given on the different objects wether its Solar System (mainly the planets) or the Messier Catalogue for the brighter Deep Sky Objects which are star clusters, globular clusters, Supernovae remnants and the brighter Galaxies - remember though, these objects are Millions of Miles away.

Regards.  Paul.

[John]

Hello and welcome to the forum 

The thing to remember when looking at the photos and sketches on here is that the scale of the planet has been considerably enlarged over what is actually visible through the eyepiece.

The details will be there but need time and experience to tease out of what will appear initially as a rather small planetary disk.

Observing conditions also have a really significant role in determining what detail can and can't be seen at a given time. 

This web page gives some quite realistic images of what some of these objects actually look like with scopes of the 10"-12" range:

http://www.backyardvoyager.com/eyepieceviews.html

My only caveat on the above images is that I felt that Mars actually looked a little larger this opposition than is pictured on the website, but it will give you the general idea. It's also worth remembering that Mars is now moving away from Earth so will start to dwindle in apparent size quite rapidly over the coming weeks and months.

[alan potts]

Hi and a big welcome to the site, I hope you enjoy yourself.

The eyepieces that come with your scope will not be terribly good quality, They say the 25mm is OK but the 10mm is a bit questionable. Jupiter is never going to be Moon size, which I am sure you know, but your scope will go to a magnification of X200 with ease and higher on a good night with the right eyepieces of course. I rarely go above X200 on Jupiter but many do so.

As Shane said make sure its cooled down properly and aslo make sure the collimation is correct, you will find threads on this subject which may sound difficult now but in a few months you will have taken it all in your stride.

As for new eyepieces the BST's are hot stuff with many site members though I have never even seen one and they come for under 50 quid, after that it is just a case of more money for small improvements and I do mean small as you get near the top.

Alan.

[ronin]

Could be a combination of things:

First the easy one the scope needs to cools down a if it was indoors and "warm".

Second and little that can be done is Jupiter is getting low when you are likely to be able to view it - it is remaining light these days until 10:00PM or after. There is then a fair bit of atmosphere to look through.

Finally as you have brought up the supplied eyepieces are not great.

As much as possible stand the scope outside before using it, or accept that the views will at first be a little less sharp.

Unless you can move Jupiter the second just has to be accepted.

Eyepieces : At f/6, 1200mm, then a 8mm EP will give 150x that should be adaquate for Jupiter and Saturn. I can say use less say a 12mm for 100x for Jupiter. The lower magnification may be better and you should see the 2 main bands and possibly 4 if well defined. I have seen 2 at 35-40x so even 100x should be easy, and I would expect 4 to appear to you.

Which eyepieces is your decision, the "normal" upgrades are BST Starguiders(£49), X-Cels(£64) and people now are mentioning the Celestron planetary's(£35), Vixen NPL plossls(£35-40). If you wear glases then plossls may not be the best choice, the eye relief is short at the lower focal lengths.

At some stage will come the dark art of collimation, read up first about it if not already.

At f/6 the scope should be reasonably stable and not require too much attention.

[m37]

I have a similar dob and would recommend playing with the supplied eyepieces for a bit before buying anything else. It's the advice I was given and it was spot on. Gave me a good idea what focal lengths to try. You might buy new ones and get largely the same view because of another factor and that would be disappointing! I would say when you have made progress in some other areas mentioned above (collimation, cooling etc.) it might be time to buy a new eyepiece or two but I got some surprisingly decent enough views of Jupiter with the stock 10mm skywatcher and saw detail and moons.

Depending on your location you might find that a 10 or 8mm is about as far as you can push it and 32mm might be a bit wide to start out. Certainly the 25 and 10 are a good way to find out what the different length eyepieces actually give you in terms of field of view, mag etc.

If/when you want to upgrade I would highly recommend the BST eyepieces, for that money I am blown away. I doubt you would be disappointed with the BST 8mm. Doesn't give a huge view of Jupiter but you get detail and can see plenty of the moons when they are in the right place.

good luck and stick with it, takes ages to get this stuff sorted but once you do it will seem pretty straightforward.

[Madgexox]

Thanks everyone, some great advice

I do try and leave the scope out to cool down but sometimes I can be a little impatient! Those website have been really useful in terms of managing my expectations of what I should be able to see.

If I'm honest, I've shyed away from collimation because I don't really understand it but I know if I want to get the best of my scope then I need to get my head round it,

Thanks again,

Mairead

[stevend]

I have found that conditions have been very poor recently especially when looking at Jupiter. Even last night when I was getting amazing views of Saturn, Jupiter was, quite frankly, pants. The stocks EPs, especially 10mm are known to be poor but conditions could well be playing a big part.

[JulianFR]

I went for BSTs as my first upgrade and am very happy with them and think they are excellent value for money.

[Charky]

If your dob's the same as my dob, which it should be, this might be useful: it's a video of what I managed to capture on my first go using a modified xbox livecam, and it's not anywhere near the quality of the eyepieces, but it's quite a good representation of what you should be able to see- note how the bands are clearly visible on jupiter!

That was before collimation, but I've acquired a Cheshire eyepiece since then, and next time I get a clear night when I'm free, I'm going to see how much of a difference it'll make- I suspect quite a lot. They're not as hard to collimate as you might imagine once you get the hang of it!