Brand new first ever Telescope

[ronin]

Easiest thing is to stick to the lens with the longest focal length (biggest number). You say H is on them well that means they are a Huygens design, which is fairly basic. The longest focal length will give the lowst magnification but the widest field of view. And that makes finding objects easier (usually). Sorry but I guess that mans the H20mm - what is the 44mm you mention ?? Just an unusual value to see mentioned.

So scope, diagonal, 20mm eyepiece.

Do you know any of the constellations and then can you find anything??

In the East should be a cluster of stars, The Pleiades (M45), they will be good for a start. That means you can mark off one DSO and one Messier object.

Sort of left and below The Pleiades should be a fairly bright orange star, Aldebaren, it is sat in another cluster called The Hyades.

Bit early for Orion and the Orion Nebula to appear but who knows.

Still want to know what the 44mm is, if eyepiece then it is a strange eyepiece.

Bad news - if you carry on then you will have to consider a few better eyepieces, nothing fancy but you will want more and better.

[brantuk]

Use the erecting diagonal and the 20mm eyepiece. That will give you 35x magnification. Now you need to find some objects to look at - try for M31 (Andromeda) - look it up in Stellarium it's between Cassiopeia and the Great Square in Pegasus. Get it in the finder then look through the eyepiece - you'll see a faint oval smudge. I'm assuming the finder and main scope have been aligned in daylight.

[Louise Hicks]

Thankyou. That should have read H4mm! I am thinking about getting a different set of lenses, any recommendations? 

 

[Ben the Ignorant]

The erecting prism is for the daytime, and the 3x barlow triples the magnification, which makes the piece of sky you see three times narrower. Set them aside for the moment. Use the 20mm because it magnifies less, thus lets you see a larger piece of sky, where you are more likely to find stars. I've never heard of a 44mm eyepiece for a beginner scope, are you sure of that?

[ronin]

Scope is 70/700 you say, so f/10 in weird astro talk. 700/70 = 10.

Plossl eyepieces should be OK, I generally say one at the f number so that is 10mm, then say one at 15mm and a wide one at 25mm or 30mm. Not sure where to suggest looking, many places do them: Rother Valley Optics, 35Astronomy. One around my area is Alan at Skies the Limit - he runs it as an internet ebay shop but he has a fair selection and he is good. I have close to 2 sets of BST's from him, and a few other bits.

Still suggest you stick to the 20mm for ease of use, keep it simply.

20mm in 700mm is a magnification of 35x, should give around a 1 degree view in Huygens and if they are around that should just squeeze the Pleiades in. They are worth looking at.

By the way everything will be upside down or left to right switched, maybe one of them or maybe both. They also move the wrong way in the eyepiece.

[Louise Hicks]

Thankyou so much everyone for answers in language I understand! I will try the 20mm one and see what I can see.

[Ben the Ignorant]

39 minutes ago, Louise Hicks said:

Thankyou. That should have read H4mm! I am thinking about getting a different set of lenses, any recommendations?

http://www.explorescientific.co.uk/en/Eyepieces/?ldtype=&_artperpage=48&pgNr=0&lang=1&cl=alist&searchparam=&cnid=f89cfa7531bb9b9f889937b14e002fcd

The 20mm, 15mm and 10mm in 70° and 1.25" from the above link. Plössl eyepieces (invented more than a century ago) are good but they have only a 50° field, these days a simple 70° eyepiece costs about the same and shows twice the sky area. Look at a brick wall with a 20mm 50° eyepiece, and a 20mm 70° eyepiece; magnification will be the same but in the latter you'll see twice as many bricks. Like sighting through a larger porthole.

[Ben the Ignorant]

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p2643_GSO-SuperView-20-mm---1-25--Weitwinkelokular---70--Feld.html

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p4839_GSO-SuperView-15mm---1-25--Weitwinkelokular---70--Feld.html

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p959_TS-WA8-Weitwinkel-Okular---8mm---1-25----70--Gesichtsfeld.html

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p616_TS-Optics-Ultraweitwinkel-Okular-9-mm-1-25----66--Gesichtsfeld.html

http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p4923_TS-Optics-Ultraweitwinkel-Okular-6-mm-1-25----66--Gesichtsfeld.html

These would also do. The secret of eyepieces is almost all of them give an excellent image right at the center, the great ones are those which maintain sharpness away from the center. If you are not too picky, like when you equip a beginner scope, these affordable wide-angle optics do the job.

For a newcomer like you, the rite of passage is not just acquiring a scope and learning the constellations, it's also roaming the optics retailers' websites to hunt for bargains. I guarantee it's an interesting sport.

 

[popeye85]

A mistake many of us have made! Stars are such vat distances away that you will only ever see them as just points of light!. What you want to be looking for are other objects in the sky. Clusters, nebula ect. The moon is a great target and Soon enough Jupiter will be on showwhich is by far my favourite sight to view and your scope will show it up brilliantly!(although a recommend a filter to show off the detail.) You also have the Orion nebula which is fantastic. As for being awed by stars I think few things rival looking at the pleides through a scope or binoculars for pure beauty in the whole night sky. If you get a bit overwhelmed about what to look at when you look up then just start by learning the constellation's (plenty of resources online, magazines etc) and go from there. Don't be afraid to ask questions and try and get along to a local meeting if you can. Hope some of this is of use!

[Charic]

popeye85.......can I ask which filter you use for Jupiter?  I'm testing some  new ocular's this Year,  also my own eyes are under scrutiny! but if a filter can help, so much the better. From my early learning, its suggested that a Blue filter works best!
 

[popeye85]

19 hours ago, Louise Hicks said:

Hi all. Tonight is the first clear night for a while so trying to look at some stars but I am struggling to see them

 

A mistake many of us have made! Stars are such vat distances away that you will only ever see them as just points of light!. What you want to be looking for are other objects in the sky. Clusters, nebula ect. The moon is a great target and Soon enough Jupiter will be on showwhich is by far my favourite sight to view and your scope will show it up brilliantly!(although a recommend a filter to show off the detail.) You also have the Orion nebula which is fantastic. As for being awed by stars I think few things rival looking at the pleides through a scope or binoculars for pure beauty in the whole night sky. If you get a bit overwhelmed about what to look at when you look up then just start by learning the constellation's (plenty of resources online, magazines etc) and go from there. Don't be afraid to ask questions and try and get along to a local meeting if you can. Hope some of this is of use!

[Rhushikesh-Canisminor]

Hello and congrats for your telescope! Don't get disheartened because it's a small scope. Many of us had started with binoculars. You are one step ahead. I am still considering a 70mm refractor in my gear because they are so grab-and-go type and under clear sky, good quality ones always live on expectations.

 

First get used to your telescope properly like mount, knobs, finder, alignment and all while the telescope is indoor.There are many videos on YouTube which will help you. It can be quite weird in the dark if you don't know much about functioning of the scope.

Before directly using your scope under skies I would suggest to spend some time to know about constellations and few of the bright stars. Those are kind of landmarks when we track objects through telescope. Stellarium will definitely be useful as mentioned in previous comments and there are many Android applications as well. 

Once you are confident enough (you can never be totally confident...I have been there!) Then grab your telescope under skies. Your telescope will be good for planets and moon is always fascinating! From my experience I would suggest to observe double stars more. Many good pairs are bright enough and you will be literally hunting stars. Also they give a better idea of sky and how the magnification works for objects. That practice will be useful to track bright clusters, nebulae and some galaxies. 

Using a telescope is like learning to play guitar. You have to know about your instrument, notations and how to use your hands to make different sounds so that you can make sense of the notes in front of you and play a really nice song! It takes patience and many, many, many mistakes but result is always rewarding.

All the best!

[brantuk]

19 hours ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

The erecting prism is for the daytime

Not strictly true - prisms (more commonly termed diagonals) can be used for night time or day time. The night time ones are usually 90 degrees whilst daytime ones are 45 degrees. They can be erecting (useful for daytime), non erecting, or amici which gives an image the right way up and the right way round side to side. They come mostly in two sizes - 1.25" or 2" eyepieces in telescopes, and in a couple of types for finders and polar finders - RACI (right angle corrected image), and RAF (right angled finder not corrected). Beware some scopes have the older sized eyepieces which are under a one inch diameter (0.965") and require adaptors for use in modern scopes (including the diagonals). Here's a useful link to read before buying eyepieces:

http://www.swindonstargazers.com/beginners/eyepieces.htm

Hth

[cloudsweeper]

Louise - 

I too started with a 70/700 refractor.  The first thing I added was a Revelation 32mm Plossl eyepiece - inexpensive and effective - it will give a mag of x 22 and a pleasing field of vision of about 2.4 degrees.  

As others have said, mag is not everything!  You can get lovely crisp views at lower levels (and wider angles).  If you're looking for stars - large clusters, asterisms, nice "starfields" - you'll need a wide field.  Forget short focal lengths and Barlows for that.

You mentioned your little finderscope and the upside-down image it gives.  That is correct, but the 'scope itself does not not give an upside-down image, only a side-to-side inverted image.  You can of course train the finder on an object in order to see it in the eyepiece, and get used to the inversion.  But many 'scopes come with a simple and inexpensive red dot finder (RDF) which is very easy to use to move about the sky.  

Have fun - there's a lot you can see with that 'scope.

Doug.

 

[Tiny Small]

At f10 (70/700) you might struggle to see nebula and galaxies. Some of the brighter ones may be visible, like Orion, but these scopes are generally designed for planets. Once everything is aligned and you can find stuff relatively easy in the sky, you're going to have a lot of fun with Jupiter and Saturn (when they come around).

As said, the barlow you have narrows the field of view by 3x, but more importantly, it will make the object 9x dimmer, so unless you are using it for the brightest planets or the moon, I would leave it in the box.

[Cosmic Geoff]

I used to have one of the Skylux 70/700 telescopes, the same as that the OP has, except that mine had three Kellner eyepieces. I had a lot of fun with it. When I was able to make comparisons with other kit I eventually established that the Kellner eyepieces and the diagonal ( mine had a 90 deg. mirror diagonal and it seemed to be no worse than a basic Celestron one) were not that bad and the weakest link in the whole chain was the objective lens.

I have a vintage 70mm Ross brass telescope (there's a similar one on Ebay now for £299) and when fitted with a higher power eyepiece (a Plossl) and turned on the night sky the results were first rate. It displayed suitable stars as tiny Airey disks.

In short, I would advise the OP to borrow some good eyepieces and try them to see if they make any difference, before spending money on replacement eyepieces.

[Dave Lloyd]

Not being patronising but don't forget if thinking about observing the Sun serious precautions apply. Have fun?

[VisualBod]

On 21/10/2016 at 23:14, Louise Hicks said:

Thankyou so much everyone for answers in language I understand! I will try the 20mm one and see what I can see.

What I always tell newcomers is, join a local astronomy society and take your 'scope along. There'll be lots of people there who can help you with setting it up to get the very best out of it and give you tips on using it. And help you learn your way around the sky. You might even be able to try other people's eyepieces to see what works in your 'scope. It's well worth whatever the subscription fee is!

[oobydooby]

If you don't want to rush in with more expensive eyepieces or wish to take things more slowly, an alternative is to visit Astroboot and look through theirs, usually they ask less than £20-£30 for reasonable Plossl's and they are usually new or very nearly new.  Check the quality in the descriptions to make sure you're not buying ones with scratches or other blemishes, I assure you they will not be trying to cheat you.

http://www.astroboot.co.uk/AstroBoot

[JemC]

On ‎23‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 15:43, Dave Lloyd said:

Not being patronising but don't forget if thinking about observing the Sun serious precautions apply

+1 for that comment,
it's great you have got your 1st telescope and all excited, but do seriously make sure you have taken all precautions and have the correct filters in place if you do decide you want to observe the sun,

and welcome to SGL