Barlow

[louismark]

Hi all, so I managed to bag my first ever telescope off eBay, got it home banged it together,  got it out in the back garden left it for 30 minutes, pointed it at the moon and thought to myself that looks cool  but that tripod mmmmmm 

The telescope was a sky watcher BKP13065EQ2 and I was wondering would a 2x Barlow be good to use on this for deep space observations? 

It came with the standard 25mm and 10mm eye pieces and I was looking for the cheapest/best way to magnify the view.

Last night must of been beginners luck because it's cloudy tonight ?

[Ruud]

Hi Louis, or is it Mark?

Try tightening all the bolts on the tripod. That may make it a bit sturdier. Weighing it down by hanging a bucket filled with sand or rocks between its legs will stabilize it further.

Maybe you should wait a while with new eyepieces.

Get to know the ones you have and scan the eyepiece forum a bit.

Many recommend BST starguider as a good budget line. A 2x Barlow and three eyepieces will give plenty magnifications to choose from. More is luxury.

Luxury is nice. Happy observing.

[louismark]

7 minutes ago, Ruud said:

Hi Louis, or is it Mark?

Try tightening all the bolts on the tripod. That may make it a bit sturdier. Weighing it down by hanging a bucket filled with sand or rocks between its legs will stabilize it further.

Maybe you should wait a while with new eyepieces.

Get to know the ones you have and scan the eyepiece forum a bit.

Many recommend BST starguider as a good budget line. A 2x Barlow and three eyepieces will give plenty magnifications to choose from. More is luxury.

Luxury is nice. Happy observing.

Hi This thanks for that, it's Louis I just use my middle name so people know who I am when I am on a forum, as there is normally more than one louis on them lol

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

3 hours ago, louismark said:

Hi all, so I managed to bag my first ever telescope off eBay, got it home banged it together,  got it out in the back garden left it for 30 minutes, pointed it at the moon and thought to myself that looks cool  but that tripod mmmmmm 

The telescope was a sky watcher BKP13065EQ2 and I was wondering would a 2x Barlow be good to use on this for deep space observations? 

It came with the standard 25mm and 10mm eye pieces and I was looking for the cheapest/best way to magnify the view.

Last night must of been beginners luck because it's cloudy tonight ?

Hi louismark and welcome to SGL. 

I hope you did not 'bang it' together  ...you will have seven years of bad luck if you damaged the mirror ...or a lot of cloud for the forseeable future!  

I am being serious now. Stick with what you have and get to know how to use the 'scope. Tripods are always the weakest link in starter 'scopes. Don't extend the tripod legs to the fullest length. I extend mine to where the spreader/tray comes to which is about halfway, then tighten, but don't over tighten.

[Alfian]

Hi Louis, and welcome to the forum. Whatever eyepieces you use, if the mount is wobbly, then it will spoil things and it will be frustrating to use, so its important to get the mount working as well as you can first. Once you have a better feel of things you can look at what your eyepiece line up should be. The standard eyepieces supplied by Skywatcher with most scopes could be described politely as "adequate", so I would certainly look at upgrading those before going to a barlow. Using something like the BST Starguiders mentioned should show a noticeable improvement. Then depending on your choices of EPs you maybe could look at buying a barlow. This needs to be considered carefully as for instance if you have a 18mm and 9mm EP and a 2x barlow, on the 18mm would give you a similar  view as the 9mm. With a bit of careful planning you can get a useful spread of effective magnifications.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Hi and welcome. Its been quite a while since anyone has asked about a Barlow. Typically its the first question people ask when they get their 1st scope. TBH, at this point, you dont need one. You have a scope with a nice size mirror (130mm) and two eyepieces (EP's) that will serve you well as you learn about the scope.  The 25mm EP will be good for widefield views such as star clusters, star fields, nebulae (not all of them). The 10mm will be great for observing the Moon and planets (if you can find any at the moment).

As mentioned above, make sure all the screws etc are tight on the tripod, but not overly tight. Its also a good idea to keep the tripod legs set to a height where the whole thing (scope,mount,tripod) feel at its sturdiest.

Get to know your scope and enjoy using it before you think about updating EP's etc. You could waste a lot of money quickly doing that if you dont know what works for you or the scope. This will only come to you with experience.

[louismark]

Thanks for the pointers guys , well the thing is today as i was in Erdington, i was just up the road from a shop that sells all this astronomy stuff  and i couldn't help myself lol, but on a positive note i found the Orion nebular and that made my night.

The moon was good as well 

 

[Louis D]

21 hours ago, louismark said:

i found the Orion nebular and that made my night.

Look for the Pleiades to the west of Orion.  It's actually better in binoculars, but it's still quite nice smaller telescopes.  Also, explore the belt of Orion.  It actually encompasses a large open cluster, Collinder 70.  You have to pan across it to realize that the brighter stars are clumped together there.  It's obvious in 15x70 binoculars that it's a cluster.

[louismark]

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Look for the Pleiades to the west of Orion.  It's actually better in binoculars, but it's still quite nice smaller telescopes.  Also, explore the belt of Orion.  It actually encompasses a large open cluster, Collinder 70.  You have to pan across it to realize that the brighter stars are clumped together there.  It's obvious in 15x70 binoculars that it's a cluster.

Thanks for that Louis D i will.  

[Ruud]

Here's a nice pdf with targets, maps etcetera titled A Simple Guide to Backyard Astronomy. Using Binoculars or a Small Telescope. Assembled by Carol Beigel:

http://carolrpt.com/astroguidev9complete.pdf

[louismark]

On 01/02/2018 at 22:23, Ruud said:

Here's a nice pdf with targets, maps etcetera titled A Simple Guide to Backyard Astronomy. Using Binoculars or a Small Telescope. Assembled by Carol Beigel:

http://carolrpt.com/astroguidev9complete.pdf

Thanks for the PDF Ruud load's of info and and advice, love the maps

[Ruud]

If you like charts and maps, and if you also like free:

With Cartes du Ciel (free) you can make and print maps that show just the sort of objects you want. I like to print them as PDF in black and white.

On Pleiades-mag-bino.pdf you see magnitude labels, an 8.1° circle, the nebulae and stars. I edited the PDF in Inkscape (also free), removed many magnitude labels, resized and coloured the ones I wanted, added red stick-figure lines and blurred the nebulae. The result is a chart to discover the limiting magnitude for your binoculars. Cartes du Ciel makes PDFs with amazing quality and Inkscape can open them as vector graphics so you get non-destructive edits.

Here is the file: Pleiades-mag-bino.pdf

Here is an unedited pdf, directly from CDC: Spring!.pdf

I like start hopping and use printed versions of PDFs like these. You can write on them if you want and dew is no problem. You an always print a new map. Cartes du Ciel lives here:  https://sourceforge.net/projects/skychart/ and Inkscape here: https://inkscape.org/en/release/0.92.2/