First telescope

[quimby44]

hi i just been given a Zennox 700 x 76 mm telescope by my sons father in law it has a 1.5 X erecting eyepiece with a H20 coated lens first time out last week seen Jupeter and the four planets by accident was so amazed that a telescope that you can buy from a superstore could do that so now the bugs has got me so what would i be able to look at with this telescope. i am saving up for a celestron 5se with a goto mount are they any good thanks stephen

[ronin]

700 with a 20mm EP will be 35x, just enough to see Jupiter, if you had the 1.5x in then about 55x.

The Eyepiece is a simple Huygens - someone will be wondering what a "water" eyepiece is.

What can you see - basically stick to the bright bits. Sounds obvious but people suddenly wonder why they cannot see the furthest galaxies that only Hubble has picked out.

M42 (Orion Neb), Pleiades (M45) will be good.

Clusters should come up as a collection of stars - sorry not sure which are around at present.

There are double stars try Mizer+Alcor in the Plough (easy), later is Albireo in Lyra, and you might just see the fuzzy thing that is M57 (Ring Nebula) not too easy to see but easy to find.

Another double is Almaak (Almach) in Andromeda - assumes you can see Andromeda.

If you can find Casseiopia then the 2 stars that point to Perseus then about half way between to 2 constellations id the Double Cluster. Not real stand out items but easy - they are 2 clusters that are close. Called Caldwell 14, they are number 14 in the Caldwell Catalogue (nothing magical in thne naming).

Midway between Orion and Pleiades is The Hyades, another cluster. Easy as you find Orions belt go from Left to Right along it and it points to the Hyades and then the Pleiades. Hyades is "easy" the red star Aldebaren is right next to them.

Learn the constellations is probably the best start, then you can work out where things are.

Forget about 5SE. Nice scope, long focal length so the view is a bit narrow. So do not go looking at the short focal length eyepieces. What you buy depends on budget. But when you get the scope get a 32mm plossl or 25mm BST or X-Cell at the same time - use it for the alignment, it's view wider.

You will need a power supply for use not at home. At home get a mains-DC converter to power it, probably capable of 5 amp. They do not like lower power or current. Get the polarity right, hey tend to have no protetion so wrong polarity and Bang, to high and Bang.

Write down all the data it needs then read what the handset asks you for, read it EXACTLY.

It wants Long then Lat NOT Lat and Long, Doncaster is West, and the date is US format of MM/.DD/YYYY not our format.

Immaterial what you say if it does not align then the data is wrong.

In effect you have entered something wrong, everyone swears they haven't.

[MarkJ44]

Aww Ronin, love your posts, but "Forget the 5SE"?? I got my first scope at xmas, a 5SE and i love it!

But seriously, there are many very experienced people who will provide you advice on ideal first scopes. I can say from my own limited experience the 5SE is easy to set up, align (if you follow the instructions), and gives great viewing. You will need power though. 

And after viewing the Tarantula Neb on Friday night i am already planning for more aperature, it was brilliant but a little more light would have made it even more spectacular.

Cheers

[ronin]

SORRY, didn't mean FORGET meant to write FORGOT, :eek: :eek:

As in I forgot to mention the 5SE. :rolleyes:

Which was the edit I did afterwards to add in the bit about it..

One little letter and so much trouble, the whole sentence (all 3 words of it) reads incorrect. :BangHead:

And I cannot blame predictive text, just cannot write, or read.

[Astro Imp]

As you found Jupiter go up and right a bit and you will land on M44 one of the biggest and best open clusters.

To help in your journey around the sky download Stellarium, a free planetarium program that shows exactly what you see in the sky above you in real time. Stellarium:- http://www.stellarium.org/

Good luck and have fun.