Seeing floaters worse with higher mag.

[maw lod qan]

I got out for a hour to give the moon a shot after daylight. As I changed eyepieces, starting with 23mm on down to a 4mm, mainly to get a look at how viewing gets worse with higher magnification at times of poor conditions. I finally slipped a 2X Barlow in with the 4mm. 

I couldn't believe how much worse my floaters were visible. I've noticed them getting worse, but this really made them more noticeable. 

Anyone else experience this?

[N3ptune]

Same thing here, I think it's normal for everyone at some level.

4mm with a Barlow I am not surprised the views were terrible.

I start seeing small floaters on the moon with an exit pupil smaller them 1mm, at 0.94mm precisely but it's not that bad.

[Pig]

It’s quite normal unless your very young ?

[ronl]

I think everyone gets the same result, all you are doing is magnifying your floaters, I find using bino viewers

on the Moon, almost cuts them out completely, but to much magnification above your scopes limit will

enhance them.

[Peter Drew]

Normal, but can be improved by using a binoviewer.   ?

[Stu]

49 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

I got out for a hour to give the moon a shot after daylight. As I changed eyepieces, starting with 23mm on down to a 4mm, mainly to get a look at how viewing gets worse with higher magnification at times of poor conditions. I finally slipped a 2X Barlow in with the 4mm. 

I couldn't believe how much worse my floaters were visible. I've noticed them getting worse, but this really made them more noticeable. 

Anyone else experience this?

Yep, that is a common experience for anyone with floaters. As the magnification gets higher, something called the exit pupil gets smaller. This is calculated as the aperture divided by the magnification you are using, or the focal length of the eyepiece divided by the focal ratio of the scope.

Generally down to 1mm will be fine, below this floaters will become noticeable and below 0.5mm they tend to become intrusive, particularly on extended objects like the moon and planets. It is generally not a problem for double stars etc.

I'm not sure which scope you have, but let's say it is a 150mm f8 newt. At x150 you have a 1mm exit pupil which is fine, at x300 you are at 0.5mm and you will see floaters clearly if you have them. Playing with the formulas, the eyepiece used would be 8 (from f8) x 0.5mm (exit pupil) = 4mm eyepiece to give x300.

If you have a 100mm scope instead, your mags are lower for the same exit pupils e.g. x100 and x200 for 1mm and 0.5mm respectively. So, aperture helps you achieve higher power before reaching the smaller exit pupils. You can use x200 on an 8" (200mm) newt and still be at 1mm exit pupil.

I hope that all that makes sense. I struggle with floaters on smaller scopes and use binoviewers to help reduce the effects. They work well on scts/maks and many refractors but can be tricky to reach focus on newts due to the limited inwards focus.

[maw lod qan]

Thanks. Feel a little bit better.

When I move my head around I see them, but nothing like this morning when using the telescope.

[bish]

Yes I get them. The worse thing is viewing the Sun in white light - it can look a bit of mess!  Walks in fresh snow will never be the same again...

[Stu]

22 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

Thanks. Feel a little bit better.

When I move my head around I see them, but nothing like this morning when using the telescope.

Which scope do you have maw?

[Paul M]

Stu's explanation is excellent. Its the pin hole camera effect. Tiny exit pupil eliminates divergent light rays so giving sharp focus to otherwise diffuse objects. 

At high power my eyepiece view is like looking through lace curtains!

[Nyctimene]

On 28/10/2018 at 16:12, Peter Drew said:

Normal, but can be improved by using a binoviewer.  

or by upgrading to larger apertures. With the 18" f/4.5, floaters are no issue for me, when I'm observing the moon with around 300x mag ...;-)

Stephan