Viewing problems with Astromaster 130

[Grassblade]

Hi Guys,

(Struggling with the forums now and where to post stuff)....hey ho.

Hi everyone, 'hoping some of you can help 'cos I'm losing the will etc...

I have, a Celestron 130 Astromaster non driven. A Baader 8-24 zoom plus Barlow, the nasty 10 that came with it, the erecting ep ( which isn't that awful) and a Cheshire.

I have struggled with this weaponry for the last week.

I shall begin. The fist casualty was the RDF....utter pants...the finder itself was, for a cheapo, quite 'acceptable' but the 'dovetail' mount was rubbish. It was never going to align...ever. The Telrad arrived. Spanking. Problem solved.

The  eq mount and I have had words, but we're getting along better now....more like working relationship than lust, but we'll carry on for now. (The CG4 might look like my type of gal however)! sssh don't tell it!

 

BUT NOT IF...

One; I cannot resolve the appearance of the secondary/ spider, if it doesn't stop wrecking the central focus in the ep I'm going to kill it! Bobbing around like a fly that doesn't know good sense until it gets swatted! I wear specs...Guys, have I dropped a huge one and I'm never going to get on with a Newt no matter what'...?

 

Two; Now this was the last straw. Last night while I struggled, up came the big fella. Uncle Jupitus. I thought "this might be worth a look". I saw.....A LOUSY BRIGHT SPOT and four little spots! All combinations any ep all focal lengths I could lay my hands on (back in the house...I was frantic)....nothing. Browsing revealed I should have seen that much with BINOs!

I think we're collimated, the Cheshire reckons so and so does the out of focus star test attempt.

What am I doing wrong!

 

[Dave In Vermont]

Greetings, Gb, and welcome to SGL - it's good to have you aboard!

I'm sure we can help get you sorted here. Sounds to me like you'd be best off by practicing focusing during daytime, as well as aligning the finding to agree with the main instrument. As regards the 10mm - I'm assuming this one came with the scope - they are usually of poor quaility. So as things go - I'm sure a better eyepiece awaits down the road.

Starry Skies,

Dave

[Grassblade]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the response,

The 10 isn't the best, but to be fair it does 'Take a picture'....Not like a Televue or a Pentax or my Baader but Celestron are right...it's a start. Put it in the bin or pretend it'll come in handy one day.

I did start yesterday and previously 'around at the basics' The moon here is getting up late afternoon and is a fine and pleasing spectacle itself. So while scope acclimatises  and the darkness turns up we survey...we play. The Telrad has handled all and 'we' no longer argue with each other about what 'we' are going to look at!

Do you have any comments on my 'vision issues'? Have you heard of this problem?

What, is with this "I could do better with a shaving mirror, a cardboard tube and a magnifying glass garbage".....The Baader and its own Barlow?  All focal lengths. That was all I got! a lousy spot and four little spots! Great.

Am I missing something?...I must be!

[laudropb]

Hi and a warm welcome to the SGL. I am not familiar with your scope, but with a focal length of 650 mm and your 8 mm setting on your Zoom ep you get a magnification of 80 x This should show Jupiter as a disk and the 2 main dark bands. The image will be small.  If you Barlow this , assuming it's a 2x Barlow,you get a magnification of 160 x, but the sky conditions will have to be good to allow this. If there is a local astronomy club it might prove helpful to go along and ask for some advice.

[kilix]

also, if you tried viewing Jupiter just as it appeared above horizon, then it's impossible to view any detail because of atmosphere. Wait for it to come a bit higher in the sky.

[Dave In Vermont]

42 minutes ago, kilix said:

also, if you tried viewing Jupiter just as it appeared above horizon, then it's impossible to view any detail because of atmosphere. Wait for it to come a bit higher in the sky.

Very true.

Objects just rising out of the horizon appear to be "boiling" due to the image you see having to go through the thickest slice of our Earth's atmosphere. As well as using higher magnification - which will serve to magnify this 'boiling' effect. Sort of like going down a highway on a hot Summers' day and you see pools of rippling-water ahead on the road.

Have fun

Dave

[Grassblade]

Quote

 

HI Guys,

And thank U2...for your welcoming and your contribuitions.

The Astromaster is, or should be, a tool capable of reasonable resolutions. The boys and girls at Celestron and Baader know more about optical engineering than to build things that don't work at all..... No....I, am missing something with it. Somewhere. 

I was worried  the zoom would be 'doubtable'. My photography experiences taught me a fair bit about glass. The first commandment stateth " Thou shalt not put false images within the light path"....that's Teleconverters out then...only proper focal length equipment for me from now on! The second commandment stateth "Thou shalt not expect too much from an 'adjustable' focal length device" Zoom lenses do all things...poorly...if poorly designed then the whole thing will be POOR. The best of them will be, at best, a compromise somewhere. We've come a long way since then...or so I hoped.

The Baader arrives stating that is was not suitable for Spotting scopes but was ONLY suitable for Astronomy. It views the Moon fairly well, tight at 8 but very reasonable at all other lengths. I DON'T, because as I write, to me, the secondary mirror is visible as an artefact, blurring the central portion of the image of the subject.

I expect to see more of planetary subjects than bright spots 'n' dots. I could have spent 30 bucks and done that!

 

[ronin]

If you are seeing the central spider and secondary at all then the focus is wrong and the eyepiece is too far out, one alternative is that the magnification is very low as that allow the secondary to become apparent, however 24mm should not be that low.

Cannot make out what you saw exactly with regards Jupiter. Are "spots" points or disks in your terms?. If you used the 24mm option then you would have 650/24 = 27x, that is likely to be too small for bands, also the overall brightness would just wash everything out with regards detail, but the idea is find it with 24mm, then swap focal lengths to around 60x or 80x area and refocus. At that magnification you should see 2 bands and however many points for the moons.

Do you have to wear glasses ? Ask as I generally do but for observing I seem to spend half time with them on and the other half with them off. Just wondering if you can try with them off. Should not really make a difference but stranger things have happened. I have no idea of the eye relief of the zoom.

[JOC]

Hi Grassblade, I am a newbie and I know the problems I had.  Firstly I agree with the comments above - I bet your focus is way off - you should not, that's NOT be able to see the spider vanes in the view - if you twist the focusser a whole lot more you should find that the other objects get sharper and the vanes can no longer be seen - the way to solve this is to set it up during the day (making sure you avoid the sun and see if you can focus on a distant tree or aerial 1/2 a mile away - even the most basic 10mm EP should still produce a good focussed image.  If you can't twist the focus enough to see a ant running up a tree stump half a mile away you must have the focus wrong.  Secondly have you read this yet? 

 If you haven't it is worth doing so and at the very least scrolling down the page until you find the pictures.  It  may just be that you have your expectations too high. 

I did the out of focus thing and know that you have to twist things a lot to get the vanes to disappear - but then you should arrive at pin-point focus.  I also read the article above before I bought mine.

[Grassblade]

Yo Bright,

Now we're getting somewhere.

The Baaders Barlow worries me. It has a shoulder that (I assume) the Baader boys and girls designed to be where it is for good reason. It doesn't insert very deeply but I'm reluctant to believe that it's that far from correct for the focuser. As I said, the assembly ( Barlow and lens) resolve the moon as I expect them to. The lens also is as I expect. The spider is not 'visible' at eye relief but the image is degraded by  the combination...somehow...do they (the lens and scope ) not really 'get along'? Or is my eyesight screwed too badly for a newt (comment from other Foureyes invited/ encouraged). Or do I need a refractor?

 

The 'spots' were at 8 (or4) visible as a very small disc, determinable as spherical but tiny at focus, focused but tiny. Not even the vaguest feature was visible. At 12 18 and 24 the 'spots' were just that spots....cool (I've never seen the Galileans before so that was a positive).....I expected more however.

Specs on specs off as necessary.

 

[Astro Imp]

Like Ronin above I normally ware glasses and spend my observing time taking them on and off.

You seem to be getting sharp focus on the moon. I suggest when next out you get a good focus on the moon then swing over to Jupiter, that way you will know you are properly focused. You should see a small disc (don't expect it to be huge) with two dark bands straddling the middle and up to four points of light strung out roughly in line with the centre. Whether you see four or not will depend if any are hiding behind the planet.

Don't give up we all had problems to start with, there is a steep learning curve to this hobby at the start but it does get easier with practice.

[kilix]

1) at no point you will be able to see galilean moons as discs with 130mm aperture. No way. They are just points of light.

2) Baader zoom and Baader barlow are of really good optical quality. There is nothing wrong with them, if you didn't drop them on the ground (or maybe if you bought second hand item, then maybe someone dropped it before). Other than that, no point in looking for faults there. Also no point blaming it for poor optical performance being a zoom. This is certainly not the case. It's really a solid piece of equipment, well known and well liked in the astronomical community.

3) If you have the scope properly focused on the Moon, just swing it to Jupiter, no need to refocus. If it is properly focused on the Moon, then it is focused to 'infinity' and it will work just as well for Jupiter without refocusing.

4) I strongly encourage you to play with the focuser/barlow/eyepiece combo during the day to get to grips with it. It is easy to make a mistake somewhere, especially during the night, when you don't see properly what is happening and also when you don't know what you should expect to see.

5) 8mm setting on the zoom + 2.25 baader barlow should give you something like 180x mag, which is enough to see cloud bands, great red spot and some details on Jup. Maybe it's even too much, if seeing conditions are not too good. I tried the ST80, which is not exactly a powerful planetary scope and could see the Jupiter's cloud bands at about 60x mag. So maybe start with barlow and 20mm setting (70x mag) on the zoom EP and go from there. Always start from lower mags, easier to focus, less shaky, bigger FOV, the planet does not run away that fast from the field of view.

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi there, welcome. 

[Grassblade]

Yo Dave,

Give my regards to the Mam Cymru... ('got rellys who bailed from the Rats and their race to Amlwch and never looked back. we'll be a visiting them shortly).

Hi Kilix,

All tools are shiny spanking new. Nothing dropped or otherwise abused. All research done beforehand and with a background in photography so, as I say, I'm certain the problem is me, but what...is my problem? Then and again your point 5) is exactly what I expected. At least SOME surface detail. What I got ( Barlowed) was a TINY spherical MAYBE with a colour tinge to the top. Focus was not an issue. Earlier views of the moon before sundown were cool and relaxing ( although hassled by the poor central image quality) Focus travel is fine and from stop to stop, of course I racked the thing in and out to find Infinity but nothing except the silly little spots. My view of the disc and dots was at the 12-18- 24 (no Barlow)! more like the view I would have expected from a much cheaper and smaller Refractor or some binos. Like the one I borrowed many years ago, which was poor, enjoyable views of the Moon but man that was IT, that was ALL so I knew I had to go further optically.

[Pondus]

I`ve got the baader zoom + barlow and I cannot achieve focus With it on my Heritage 130p,

unless I move the secondary closer to the primary (which is easy, the Heritage beeing a collapsible truss-tube).

Maybe  if you can move Your primary slightly closer towards the secondary you will achieve focus.

Just a guess though...

 

Rune

 

[Stu]

It does sound like you are not achieving focus. The moon will still look quite impressive just out of focus, but Jupiter won't.

I've read plenty of accounts of people achieving reasonable results with the Heritage 130, no reason to believe you can't do likewise.

If you are seeing a central shadow then you are not in focus. I think the H130 has a single stalk secondary support so you should see Jupiter as a small round disc with probably two darker lines across the middle, then two bright diffraction spikes at 180 degrees to each other i.e. In a line through the planet. Possibly a little like this image but this one has four spikes.

Is this what you see at lower power?

[JOC]

Are you dropping the Barlow in the EP holder and the EP into the Barlow to their fullest extents?

[Pondus]

The OP got a baader zoom and barlow (2.25), the barlow screws into the eyepiece, cant do anything wrong there.

I was just thinking since the astromaster has the same aperture and fl (pretty short) as the Heritage,  there might be similar focus issues With the zoom (and barlow)

like my Heritage has.

I can easily move the secondary  towards the primary to solve this, but With the Astromaster you probably have to move the primary a bit closer to the secondary to

achieve focus?

I have no idea if that really is the problem, just a suggestion. .

 

[JOC]

Could it be that the Barlow and the EP are just producing too much 'magnification'?  With my telescope if I go beyond a certain magnification things actually start to look pretty out of focus/fuzzy

[Grassblade]

Hi Guys,

Justin from the cold here.

Pondus...Hi,

Er...dude you have a Baader zoom? Does it have a loose something inside it! Something 'heavy' rattling like a loose element (s)! Can you shake yours for me (please tell me yours is solid).

Hi Stu,

Thanks tons for that image. That is similar to what I've just had in my garden. But focus on it is lousy!

I think I may have found the cause of not holding focus? If I do indeed have a loose elephant inside the body of the zoom that's likely to make focus...

....As reliable a politician!

I'm off to bed now.

Thanks to all for your contributions.

[elliot]

I have the same scope at the moment and have been able to see detail on Jupiter with much inferior EPs than that Baader. But just the other night the same mag showed Jupiter as just a boiling blob of blob. Jupiter is so low on the horizon right now it's bit of a mess early evening. Could that be it?

[Stu]

On 08/04/2017 at 22:35, Grassblade said:

If I do indeed have a loose elephant inside the body of the zoom that's likely to make focus...

I've never been able to maintain good focus with loose elephants in my eyepieces.....  

[Alan64]

On 4/8/2017 at 04:21, Grassblade said:

Hi Guys,

(Struggling with the forums now and where to post stuff)....hey ho.

Hi everyone, 'hoping some of you can help 'cos I'm losing the will etc...

I have, a Celestron 130 Astromaster non driven. A Baader 8-24 zoom plus Barlow, the nasty 10 that came with it, the erecting ep ( which isn't that awful) and a Cheshire.

I have struggled with this weaponry for the last week.

I shall begin. The fist casualty was the RDF....utter pants...the finder itself was, for a cheapo, quite 'acceptable' but the 'dovetail' mount was rubbish. It was never going to align...ever. The Telrad arrived. Spanking. Problem solved.

The  eq mount and I have had words, but we're getting along better now....more like working relationship than lust, but we'll carry on for now. (The CG4 might look like my type of gal however)! sssh don't tell it!

 

BUT NOT IF...

One; I cannot resolve the appearance of the secondary/ spider, if it doesn't stop wrecking the central focus in the ep I'm going to kill it! Bobbing around like a fly that doesn't know good sense until it gets swatted! I wear specs...Guys, have I dropped a huge one and I'm never going to get on with a Newt no matter what'...?

 

Two; Now this was the last straw. Last night while I struggled, up came the big fella. Uncle Jupitus. I thought "this might be worth a look". I saw.....A LOUSY BRIGHT SPOT and four little spots! All combinations any ep all focal lengths I could lay my hands on (back in the house...I was frantic)....nothing. Browsing revealed I should have seen that much with BINOs!

I think we're collimated, the Cheshire reckons so and so does the out of focus star test attempt.

What am I doing wrong!

 

A 130mm f/5 is not actually the ideal for high-powered observations of the planets, given its rather short 650mm focal-length, but doable with the right equipment.  

Jupiter and Saturn exhibit considerable detail at 150x...

650mm ÷ 150x = a 4.3mm eyepiece, or at the zoom's 8mm setting with a 2x barlow, and for an effective 4mm(163x).  Instead of the zoom and the barlow combined, and the weight thereof, I would suggest one these relatively dainty and wee "planetary" oculars...

http://www.365astronomy.com/4mm-the-planetary-uwa-eyepiece-58-degrees-1.25.html

There's even a 3.2mm...

http://www.365astronomy.com/3.2mm-the-planetary-uwa-eyepiece-58-degrees-1.25.html (203x), but that may be a bit much.

The higher powers are more and most easily effected with a telescope of a longer focal-length; 900m and longer.

You can dim down Jupiter and other bright objects with a variable-polariser...

http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/antares-variable-polarising-filter-125.html

I have found, and with my 150mm f/5, that decreasing the brightness will reveal colours and details, especially during moments of good atmospheric seeing.  If Jupiter, and Venus, appear as this...

...then you may want to try the variable-polariser.

[Moonshane]

 You can see some detail detail on Jupiter at about 80x which is your scope and zoom at the 8mm end. Up to about 130x (scope, Barlow and zoom at 11mm) should be fine.

Assuming in focus, let your eye adjust to the brightness by looking for maybe 20 mins.  hopefully this will help.

 

[JOC]

Thinking about the other thread does the OP's telescope have one of those big plastic disks with the removable smaller 'lid' in it?  I don't know, but if it does it might be worth making the point that the big plastic lid is supposed to be removed in its entirety and not just the little lid - it does seem to be a problem that several people have had.