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Celestron 130SLT eyepiece help


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Hello! I'm a beginner space enthusiast and my first telescope purchase was the Celestron NexStar 130 SLT. Included, came a 20mm lens and a 25mm lens. The telescope is amazing, however, I only seem to be able to view the moon with any kind of clarity. Seeing as I am a beginner, I may just be making an amateur mistake. I am willing to purchase more eye pieces and plan to already, and I did read a lot of the stickied post and from what I can tell I should be able to at least view mars with my current lenses. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

- Chris  

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Have a look at the Astronomy Tools website - http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/   

I quickly entered your scope and a 20mm eyepiece in visual mode.  Is this what you see?  Magnification is Focal Length of scope divided by focal length of eyepiece.  So I think your magnification is only in the mid-30s.  Try a shorter f/l eyepiece.  But be aware that your scope will have a magnification 'limit' at which the view will turn decidedly mushy.  Have a play on the site with different combinations.  

c130.jpg 

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You are not making any mistakes but seeing what you should be seeing. You should read this to temper your expectations 

The honest trust it the moon will always give you lots of detail as it is relevantly close 0.25 million miles) when compared to the solar system planets (mars roughly 250 million miles and jupiter 350 to 600 million miles) and deep space objects which are not measured in miles as they are so distant. 

You should try viewing Jupiter through your lowest numbered eyepiece, did it not come with a 10mm?  And then through this you should see some cloud banding and maybe the great red spot. However even with the 25mm you should have seen the 4 jovian moons, little specs of light usually lined up either side of it or sometimes all to just one side. Have another go but read the thread I posted, it will be well worth it. 

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The problem is that you are using low magnification eyepieces. The 25mm is giving x26 and the 20mm is giving x32.5 in your scope which has a focal length of 650mm. Ideally you need something like a 5mm which will give x130 to be able to observe the planets with some detail.

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Chris - your mags will be x26 and x33 - not very much for planetary work.  (You normally get something like a 10 and a 25, I think.  A 10mm would give you x65 - still not much for a short focal length 'scope.)  Mars will look very, very small at those mags - you need longer focal length eyepieces.  Jupiter will look a little better/bigger with what you have.

A 6mm EP gives x108.

Doug.

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According to Celestron's own web page the scope comes with a 25mm & 9mm EP's, with stated magnifications of 26x & 72x respectively. The 25mm EP will give good wide field views for DSO's, the 9mm would give small but descents views of Jupiter, Saturn & Mars. Did you buy the scope new, or did you get it second hand at all? Either way for more detailed views of the planets you have to get some good Planetary Ep's. A 3mm EP in your scope will give a 216x view of any planet. Given that the atmosphere normally limits magnification to less than 200x this may only give good results when the seeing is very stable. A 3.5mm or 4mm EP will give magnification under 200x, so for most nights these would work better.

 

image.png

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Excellent first scope! You might want a 2X or 2.5X barlow that will double or so the power of each eyepiece.  

For your first targets try Saturn  ( Mars is very disappointing this year at least for me, too low in the sky 4 high power), moon, and the double star albireo  (beta Cygni), these can easily be found in your finder scope. My first DSO was m13 and not too hard to find and very rewarding. In time you will see more than you see now once your brain realizes it's not watching TV:)

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  • 2 years later...
On 15/06/2016 at 03:11, aftermath said:

Hello! I'm a beginner space enthusiast and my first telescope purchase was the Celestron NexStar 130 SLT. Included, came a 20mm lens and a 25mm lens. The telescope is amazing, however, I only seem to be able to view the moon with any kind of clarity. Seeing as I am a beginner, I may just be making an amateur mistake. I am willing to purchase more eye pieces and plan to already, and I did read a lot of the stickied post and from what I can tell I should be able to at least view mars with my current lenses. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

- Chris  

Hi There, I just got a Celestron nexstar 130 myself and am having the same problem as you. Did purchasing additional eye pieces help?

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  • 1 year later...

Chris, Mikey,

I have the same issue as well. Used the 25mm pens it came with, saw the moon the size of a quarter but beyond that Jupiter was simply a white dot with black in center. I know I am doing something wrong, just don't know what.

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1 hour ago, Ankeet said:

Chris, Mikey,

I have the same issue as well. Used the 25mm pens it came with, saw the moon the size of a quarter but beyond that Jupiter was simply a white dot with black in center. I know I am doing something wrong, just don't know what.

You are doing nothing wrong. The 25mm eyepiece will give you a magnification of 26x (650/25). A shorter focal length eyepiece is needed to increase the magnification.

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On 10/08/2019 at 06:11, Ankeet said:

Jupiter was simply a white dot with black in center

Hi Ankeet, your description indicates that you are not coming to focus properly or trying to ramp up the magnification too much (which the 25mm is not capable of), you need a shorter focal length eyepiece to give you more power.

Apologies to Chris, the OP!

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