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New to this and bought a celestron 114eq


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Hi All,

i am new here and to this hobby, i have recently bought a celestron 114eq from ebay and it came with the following three eye pieces:

Comes with 3x Barlow Lens, 4mm Lens and 20mm Lens

when i use the barlow lens and focus for example of some apartments it works fine but i cant seem to get the other two lens to work at all, vwhere am i going wrong?

i put them in the barlow lens and try the lenses on there own just cant to get any focus with them.

any tips/advice would be usefull and is this telescope good to beginners to llok at the moon and other planets?

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Your scope has a focal length of 1000mm and the 4mm eyepiece will give 250x magnification which is probably a bit much for Astromaster. The 20mm will give 50x mag and it's probably better to go no more than 150x to 160x for reasonable observing of the night sky. This scope normally comes with 10mm and 20mm eye pieces and no barlow, a 3x barlow will struggle.

At 50x you should be able to make out Jupiter and it's moons but won't see much surface detail - an eye piece giving 125x will be better and you should see the banding. Similar or a little more magnification on Saturn will show the rings and (with close scrutiny) the Cassini division.

But you need to be in focus, and you need to be aware of the effect of the atmosphere and general viewing conditions (i.e. the "seeing"). Choose high objects rather than near the horizon where the atmosphere is thicker. Use a very dark site, make sure your eyes are dark adapted, ensure there's no high level whispy clouds, and choose the appropriate eye piece for the right object - this will help. Some objects (eg galaxies and nebulae) are best viewed at lower power, or sometimes with binocs rather than scope (eg open clusters) whereas planets will take high power viewing quite nicely. Hope that helps and welcome to SGL. :)

Magnification = focal length (mm) / eye piece size (mm)

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I believe there are two versions of this scope. One has a spherical mirror, short tube and therefore a corrector lens in the focusser to achieve the focal length. This is not a desirable scope apparently. FLO don't sell it for example. If you have this version then maybe there is over correction when you combine other EPs. The other version has a parabolic mirror and longer tube length and is the much better scope for it. The reason I know this is because a neighbour has inherited the 114 and I am going to help them use it. They have the 1145P version (parabolic).

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