Need help with Celestron 70 travel scope chromatic aberration

[dungba88]

Hi

I'm using Celestron 70 travel scope and trying to view Jupiter last night. I have 10mm, 20mm and a 2x barlow. At 20x and 40x the Jupiter looks quite bright that I couldn't see any details clearly. At 80x (using 10mm and 2x barlow) the chromatic aberration kicks in, there are bluish and reddish spots around the object so I couldn't see any details either, I assume it's because of the short focal length.

So I have 2 questions:

1. Should I try to correct the chromatic aberration and/or the brightness by upgrading with extra accessories and hopefully it'll show more details of Jupiter, or should I buy a more powerful telescope (maybe a 700mm-1200mm one)?

2. If I should fix then how to fix it?

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

P/S: I live in Singapore, so not much to see here, maybe Jupiter, Saturn or Orion but that's it. That's why I like the Celestron travel scope, where I can bring it anywhere I travel to.

[Demonperformer]

HI, dungba, and welcome to SGL.

The truth is that the scope you have has severe limitations. Take a look at this thread. I would suggest you do not try to "fix" it by throwing more money at it, but maybe consider saving for a better scope (which will cost a lot more than this one). Something like this would give you much better views (it has nearly 4x the light grasp of the celestron for about twice the price) and would still be portable to get out of the city lights.

[dungba88]

Hi DP

Thanks for your reply. So it seems it won't worth it if I put more money in. The telescope you mentioned looks quite good but is it possible to bring it on airplane as handbag?

[Demonperformer]

Probably not be able to that. I was assuming you meant travel out of the city (i.e. by car).

[dungba88]

Then it will be an issue since from Singapore the only place to travel by car is Malaysia :P, but that's also an option since I usually visit Malaysia for stargazing anyway. I'll consider it. Thanks.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Are you using the tripod that was supplied with the scope?. Its rubbish. As DP said, its not worth investing money in this scope because its cheap and has its limitations. It is designed to be a wide field scope so it struggles with high magnification. I have one but rather than spend money adding stuff to it, i use it with things i already had. I had a better tripod, so i use that. I wanted to do solar observing, so i did spend a chunk of money buying all the safety filters etc. I use the scope purely for solar observing now.

Here's my 70mm travel scope on a Horizon 8115 tripod with a Daystar Quark solar filter and a Hyperion 8-24mm zoom eyepiece.

[dungba88]

Hi Luke.

Yes I'm using the supplied tripods, and it's very shaky indeed. Did you buy the tripod separately or it came along with another telescope? I'm thinking I could buy some basic accessories (like tripods, filters), that can be reused when I got a more powerful telescope.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I bought the tripod separately so i could mount my 20x80 bins.  The tripod i have, gets used for all of these: 70mm scope, 20x80 bins, Cannon 450D

[Stub Mandrel]

I mostly do imaging, but I wanted a small, portable scope for looking at planets, double stars and brighter DSOs so I got one of these:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/optical-tube-assemblies/celestron-c90-mak.html

Not much bigger than the travelscope, but about twice the light grasp and better for planets. And no CA!

It is excellent for the moon and it comes with a RACI prism that makes it a perfect wildlife /birding scope as well. It even comes in a rucsac!

Not the best choice for big or faint DSOs, and it needs a separate tripod.

[celestron8g8]

I agree , I wouldn't put more money into that 70mm . Wont be worth it but better would be upgrade with others mentioned here . Good choice on the Mak . 

[refractordude]

On 24/05/2018 at 23:28, dungba88 said:

Hi

I'm using Celestron 70 travel scope and trying to view Jupiter last night. I have 10mm, 20mm and a 2x barlow. At 20x and 40x the Jupiter looks quite bright that I couldn't see any details clearly. At 80x (using 10mm and 2x barlow) the chromatic aberration kicks in, there are bluish and reddish spots around the object so I couldn't see any details either, I assume it's because of the short focal length.

So I have 2 questions:

1. Should I try to correct the chromatic aberration and/or the brightness by upgrading with extra accessories and hopefully it'll show more details of Jupiter, or should I buy a more powerful telescope (maybe a 700mm-1200mm one)?

2. If I should fix then how to fix it?

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

P/S: I live in Singapore, so not much to see here, maybe Jupiter, Saturn or Orion but that's it. That's why I like the Celestron travel scope, where I can bring it anywhere I travel to.