Help with viewing planets

[StarGazer788]

Hello! I own a 70mm celestron travel scope. At night when in viewing planets a white dot appears and that's it, no moons or detail. Can anyone explain how to fix this because I really want to see detail of an actual planet.

[ronin]

Presently, well at least for us here, Jupiter is the only planet that appears much. From ancient experience you need around 40x magnification to any detail. The detail will just be a smallish disk and 2 of the equitorial bandsbasically Light, dark, Light, Dark, Light.. Going to have to search out the spec on the travel scope now.

OK, 70/400. So a 10mm eyepiece should show something, not a lot but something. So I would have expected the 10mm provided to have done something. Equally the 10mm provided is usually not good and you may have a not good one of a not good eyepiece. Still seems odd.

Have you played carefully with the focus? As if out of focus then you get no deatil, just all washed out and not sharp. Also not seeing Jovian moons sort of implies the focus may have been off. If you get the chance aim at Jupiter and then ignore Jupiter itself, adjust the focus slowly to see if any of the moons come into focus.

After that all I can suggest is another eyepiece, would half suggest one of the 8mm Paradigms, they are good and would deliver 50x, the 5mm Paradigm may work just one of those "may" areas. The only 6mm I know of is the William Optics and they are more costly.

Will say Jupiter is never big, always small. But a 70/400 should show some banding at 40x, I used a 70/350 on it once and saw the mentioned banding. So it is possible. When Saturn appears then it needs more magnification and that is usually up around the 100x mark and not sure the scope will deliver that. One option for saturn is a reasonable barlow and the 8mm Paradigm (100x) but the Travel 70 is not a scope for high magnifications so it will be questionale if it will deliver 100x reasonably.

If you are a member of any club maybe someone will let you try out a Paradigm on a club night, they are not overly costly so usually not a case of not letting anyone near them, and they work well.

[Dave In Vermont]

A 70mm scope, such as yours, won't give images of planets  as anything more than a view (let's say Jupiter) larger than the eraser on the end of a pencil. This is normal. As well as stars being more than brighter dots.

To see details on a planet - Jupiter - is to rely on your own eyes at the eyepiece. Great, big planets? This simply can't happen. But the Moon should be spectacular! But taking a cruise through this thread here below may help you understand this situation fully:

I have a 12" telescope (70mm = slightly under 3"), and this may give a somewhat larger view, but it won't emulate what you see in a glossy magazine. It's really about contrast, 'seeing' conditions, and training your eyes to enable them to discern finer details. There are many, wonderful things to see up there. Stick with it! You'll get there soon enough!

Enjoy! And please don't be shy in asking questions in these. We love them & are here to answer them in these many forums.

Oh yes - Welcome to SGL  - it's great of you to join us!

Starry (and planetary) Skies -

Dave

[rockystar]

you should be able to split Jupiter's moons, I can with my 8x42 binocular.

Are you sure it was Jupiter you had in your field of view? I mistook Arcturus for Jupiter a few weeks ago.

can you get stars to show as a point of light?

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL. Jupiter will always appear as a very small disk in your scope, but you should be able to see all 4 major moons when they are viewable. You may be having focussing problems, or has been pointed out misidentifying a star as Jupiter. Try again the next clear night and let us know how you get on.

[Starpaw]

When I view Jupiter through my ST80, I can easily see two of the main cloud bands and the 4 Galilean moons using a 10mm orthoscopic eyepiece and a 2.5x barlow giving a magnification of 100x.  The issue could be with the stock eyepiece, if that's what you are using, or, as others have suggested, there could focus issues.  A 10mm plossl with a barlow might be a worthwhile upgrade, but it's probably best to see what you can achieve with your current gear first.  

[Floater]

Welcome. Keep persevering and keep your expectations low. ?

Also, spend time looking through the eyepiece, at Jupiter or anything else. Our fast-paced lives tend to make us impatient to see everything right away. It doesn't happen like that. The more time you spend looking you'll see changes in the seeing/transparency/turbulence which makes more features observable.

Above all, have fun and don't let frustration or too high expectations mar your enjoyment. ??

[StarGazer788]

Wow! I didn't expect that much replies, im thankful for everyone's replies with helping me. To continue on, I either think im looking at stars, or something is wrong. In YouTube I see people using the 70mm and getting detail like saturn's ring and jupiters disk.  I use an app called skyview to aid my observing but everytime it says this is Jupiter, in the sky I see Jupiter with my eyes, but when i take a closer look, it's just a white, detailess dot.

[happy-kat]

Are you getting dew on the front of your telescope?

Don't chase magnification, what eyepieces have you got?

Does the Moon focus for you?

[John]

Jupiter should look something like this with your scope at around 50x magnification. Clearly not a star:

 

[Jimtheslim]

If you are using a finder scope it may be worth double checking in daytime that it is aligned with the main scope. if it's not spot on you might think your looking in the right place but be very far away by the time you bend over to look through the scope. Jupiter isn't great at the moment, despite a couple of nights under high pressure skies and away from the Jetstream it still seamed to suffer from a lot of turbulence and the details very much washed out. However the it should be recognisable by the fact it has nearby moons which are much smaller, these look far more like the size and colour of stars compared to the disk of the planet.

If you have a finder scope then double check it is aligned. Pick out a distant object such as a spire, rooftop, tree, pylon etc up to about a quarter mile away. Get it in the main scope using a low powered eyepiece then adjust the finder to match.

[kilix]

You did not specify what kind of eyepiece you use.
General rule is to start from longer focal length eyepiece (20mm in your case, I believe). Use this smaller magnification and its bigger field of view to identify the object - but first make sure your focusing is OK by viewing random bright star and focusing it to pinpoint of light. Then swing the telescope to what you believe is Jupiter. You should clearly see that it is not a star but a small disc (think a pea sized object viewed from across the room) with moons orbiting it. You should see 4 moons, maybe 3 if one is behind the planet. Then you can use the shorter focal length eyepiece (like 10mm) to increase magnification. Refocusing after changing EP is almost always necessary.
In your 70/400mm scope the 10mm EP gives you 40x magnification which is not much, but with patience and good focus you should be able to see atleast 2 red cloudbelts on Jupiter.