Barlow/Powermate

[hornedreaper33]

Just a quick one. Would a Barlow or Powermate be used when imaging a small target such as a planet and is this purely to increase the size of the target on the sensor?

 

Thanks,

Chris.

[Aenima]

2 hours ago, hornedreaper33 said:

Just a quick one. Would a Barlow or Powermate be used when imaging a small target such as a planet and is this purely to increase the size of the target on the sensor?

 

Thanks,

Chris.

Yes, a barlow will increase the focal length of your scope - visually or photographically - effectively raising magnification and making the object look bigger, or appear bigger onscreen (if using a camera).

 

[Cornelius Varley]

9 hours ago, hornedreaper33 said:

Just a quick one. Would a Barlow or Powermate be used when imaging a small target such as a planet and is this purely to increase the size of the target on the sensor?

 

Thanks,

Chris.

Barlows or Powermates are normally used to improve the image scale (size of image) and to optimise the resolving power of the telescope to the pixel size of the camera.

[hornedreaper33]

Thank you for the responses. A couple of further questions, would this always be required for use with small targets and I'm assuming as with using a more powerful eyepiece, atmospheric effects are amplified?

 

Chris.

[Aenima]

Definitely yeah, the seeing and other issues all get magnified as well. You'll find that has a great deal of influence over how well you can view planets or image them - along with collimation and quality of optics, the astronomical seeing is what determines the amount of detail in an image of a planet, and i think of the view in the eyepiece as well.

 

Sometimes when the seeing is bad, you might end up getting a better view with less magnification for the same reason, and with smaller scopes - aperture in particular - too much power will have a negative effect if you push past the max. useful magnification.