Skywatcher 60 what can I expect to see?

[Natteheks]

Hi All

Complete noob here

I recently bought a Skywatcher mercury 60 and after some (a lot) of fumbling about, I finally saw something. I think it must have been Capella, and I managed to zoom? in fairly close but how do I tell if it was just a major blur or actually a good picture? It looked fairly sharp in the edges but how much should I be able to see with these specs? I was using the 20 mm ocular. 

Skywatcher Mercury 60 

Objective lens 60mm

Telescope Focal Length 700  f/11.66

Ocular 1.25"20mm - 10mm

Magnifications 35x, 70x, 140x

 5x24 finderscope - 1.5x erecting eyepiece, 2x Barlow lens

[Charic]

Welcome to the SGL.

With Stars, you wont actually see any detail,  their just points of light, though you may see colour changes between different Stars, so if Capella looked good, then expect no more.

I would suggest looking at the Moon or finding a Planet, then decide if your images are in focus.

There is a good freeware program that is available, to help and guide you,  as to what you can find and hopefully see in the skies above you, check out Stellarium. its a software planetarium, and when you have explored its avenues and set up according to your location, like becomes easier in tracking down some targets, or if the weather is bad, then your only hope of seeing whats up there ( virtually of course, but its very accurate )

[Naten]

Where are you located, or where are you observing from? It can (and often will) make a huge difference on whether or not you can see something, or how good the image would be.

[Natteheks]

Ty

It's all the fault of the ISS space station NASA posted a link where I could see when and where it would be passing over my location, and when I saw it, I was smitten. I have a feeling this might become a rather time and money consuming hobby

[Natteheks]

I already have Stellarium, it's awesome! It helped me figure out that it was probably Capella I was seeing. It's set to the closest major city Aabenraa in Denmark. I'm waiting for the next time the moon will show up. The last couple days it was only up during the day but tomorrow is should be visible when I get home from work around 23.00 o'clock. I live in a small city so there is, unfortunately, some light pollution.

[rockystar]

as long as your stars are points of Light, then you have focus. In Auriga (the constellation that contains Capella) there are 3 Messier open clusters, see if you can find them, then should show lots of stars clumped closely together.

[Sirius Starwatcher]

Hello and welcome to SGL your route into astronomy is the same route I took, Saw a docu on the ISS and then saw it pass over. Joined SGL and here we are. Welcome, have a great time and enjoy your chosen hobby.

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL. The Moon is an excellent target to use to get yourself familiar with your scope. Try the different magnifications, although the 140x may be just too much for your scope, but give it a go anyway. Best of luck and remember the main thing is to enjoy yourself.

[rwilkey]

Hi, your telescope does not have a 'zoom' function, what you were doing was rolling the focuser in and out of focus, this part of the telescope is for focus only.  It is the eyepieces that give you magnification.  Try the Moon for practice, it is a great object to get you started and understand the workings of the telescope and eyepieces better. 

[billyharris72]

Welcome to the forum. Some good advice above. Also worth bearing in mind that you can view the moon during the day. It won't have as much contrast as at night, but you should still get some reasonably good detail. Just make 100% sure you don't point it anywhere near the Sun and you won't go wrong.

Billy.

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi there, welcome.

[ronin]

Easy answer is quite a lot. However like everything it needs a bit of thought.

Start with stars - they will remain points, just too far away, but I, and I suspect others, will sit and just look at Arcturus, Betelgeuse and Antares when they appear. They are all red stars and seem to hold an attraction. If you want a bit of a challenge in red stars get a list of Carbon Stars and they the brighter ones of those. Not easy however. Take a look at The Astro League for a Carbon Star observing list. Next is double stars, many have contrasting colours and the 60 should get a good number, try Albireo and Almaak for 2 easy ones. Here is a short list - DVAA.

DSO's - really it is the Globular Clusters and Open Chusters. In the GC side are M13, M92, they are visible in binoculars. I have not recently tried for others so will leave others to you. Open clusters try the double cluster in perseus for an easy one, again a binocular object. For Nebula there is really only M42 when it appears. Not sure about M57 (Ring nebula) sort of might be on a good night with dark skies. The Dumbbell nebula is brighter but not found it yet, (never bothered).

To find or identify possibilities - download Stellarium, set it for your location. Start it up and set time to evening (F5), then press F4 and set the DSO magnitude to say 6 and apply it. Lots of DSO's will disappear but the bright ones remain. They are what you go looking for. There are 3 open clusters in Auriga (seems you have worked that one out) that I can see in binoculars if the sky is darlk so again the 60mm should be fine. There are 2 or 3 globular cluster iin Ophiuchus that will I think be visible to you.

Learn the basic constellations, if not already half familiar with them. M13 is in Hercules, so saying M13 means anyone first has to know Hercules and find it. M57 is in Lyra which is nicely placed and M57 is easy to aim a scope at, it sits in the centre of 2 half bright close stars, but still necessary to find Lyra. Also try the double double in Lyra.

For possible observing lists try the Messier Objects and the Caldwell Objects, also check out the Binocular Objects on the Astro League page. All those should occupy you for about 2 years maybe 3. 

Oh yeah, there is the moon, somehow that gets forgotten.

Scope will not give 140x, sorry but 100x is a realistic maximum and that when things are working for you, which generally is not often. If you keep at this then consider a couple of inexpensive but reasonable plossl's, unless you wear glasses. Might be worth getting a simple plossl to see the difference in performance. Better views make this hobby more pleasureable.