Skywatcher 130P am I doing something wrong?

[Moons a balloon]

Hi everyone, firstly apologies if some of these questions are a bit obvious I'm a total novice who bought a Sky Watcher 130P Reflector telescope on an EQ2 mount for my daughter.  Classed as an F5 it came with a 2xBarlow, a Super 10mm and Super 25 Wide Angle Long Eye Relief, Red dot finder and a collumator.  I purchased this as My daughter is fascinated by the moon especially as well as being able to see Jupiter and Saturn (not in any great detail but at least the bandings)  I'd read that this scope was best suited to planets rather than nebulas and I happy with that as my daughter is mainly interested in planets.
I can confirm that the scope is put together correctly, balanced and collumated. (thanks Youtube for the tutorial).  We tested it out on the moon and just wow, blown away. We got up very early and found Jupiter and have to say was less than impressed.  We first used the 10mm to get it centered, added the Barlow, even swapped the 10mm for the 25.  The best I could get was something just bigger than a fuzzy marrow pea with no detail just a very bright disc.  The mount is weighted down well as I've read some comments that its a bit lightweight so I'm not nudging it.  I've seen some reviews where banding has been observer on Saturn so I'm unclear what is the issue here.  Am I expecting too much from this scope? Are the eye pieces sufficient? As I said a complete newbie any help you can offer is welcome.  (anything to stop my daughter winging  )

[FaDG]

Hi there and welcome. 

Sorry to read your disappointment but,  while the newton is an excellent all rounder, it's not the most indicated scope for planets, due to its fast aperture ratio / short focal length. 

So, despite the barlow, you'll never get from it a very large image of the planets: Maksutov Cassegrains are better in this respect due to their longer focal lengths for the same aperture. 

You could try with a shorter FL eyepiece although eye relief, brightness and comfort tend to suffer: with the 130 you can push the magnification up to about 250x before losing detail. 

With the 10mm and the Barlow you're at 130x. So either a 5mm with barlow or a good 3mm could do the trick. 

And I fear that's it, unless you want to pass to planetary imaging, but that's a completely different can of Worms. 

On the upside, your newt will allow much better Deep Sky opportunities than a Mak, so there's literally a while universo open to you! 

Fabio 

[Stub Mandrel]

Jupiter is very low down at the moment, even at 5am when it is at its highest it's less than 15 degrees. This means you need excellent conditions and even then some detail will be lost because of atmospheric dispersion (a prism-like effect) smearing the colours. It will always be small, but I have seen moons and their shadows, belts and the red spot in my 150Pl which is only slightly larger.

Could you see the galillean moons? If not, there's a chance you were looking at the wrong object - possibly Antares which is quite close to the west of Jupiter. It would be easy to mistake Jupiter and Antares for Saturn and Jupiter at the moment.

Finally, with the barlow and short lens, focus becomes more critical. It can be beneficial to focus on a nearby star and get things pin-sharp before moving to Jupiter.

The 130P scopes are very good, and certainly well suited to a lot more than just the moon and planets.

 May I suggest you also look at this thread, it's meant to manage expectations of people who think they will see Hubble-like images, but it is also useful for peopel who don't realise just how much they can see on a clear, steady night with reasonably dark skies:

 

 

[FaDG]

29 minutes ago, Moons a balloon said:

We first used the 10mm to get it centered, added the Barlow, even swapped the 10mm for the 25.

If I get your point you're looking at magnification upside-down. 

Lower FL eyepieces yield more magnification. 

You should use the 25 to find the target and then pass to the 10 and add the barlow

[happy-kat]

Jupiter is low in the sky and in the murk unstable conditions.

I've seen a moon transit shadow on Jupiter using the same telescope (in a different guise) and 5 equatorial bands. So it's possible you just got to wait for good seeing and elevation.

[Mr niall]

As a couple of people have said, Jupiter isn’t very well placed at the mo, the lower anything is to the horizon the more difficult it is to get a good view due to our atmosphere.

As long as you are happy with the collimation then I’d try with just the 10mm first - that’ll give you about 60x. The trick is to use the 4 moons as your focus point, ignore Jupiter and get those moons as sharp as possible. At 60x you should be able to make out the coloured bands of Jupiter which are very cool, but give it some time at the eyepiece - at least 5 mins, you’ll get a few moments of great clarity and then it’ll fade out again due to the atmosphere so stick with it. On a good night you’ll pick out the GRS but you need to go to about 125x for that. On other nights it’s just a smushy blur.

Honestly I spent two months chasing a good view of mars last summer; never got more than an ill defined tangerine... that’s the way it goes sometimes!

but your scope is fine for planets and a great scope, really great actually. personally I’ve always found that around the 80 to 90x mark is just great for Jupiter - but more like 150 for mars or Saturn.

its just a practice thing, don’t be disheartened.

[Moons a balloon]

Thanks everyone for the speedy response, I'll do my best to cover off the responses.

[Happy Kat] I was up at 05:15 this morning, left the scope to cool down till 05:45 and then started my viewing.  I was lucky there wasn't a cloud in the sky for a slightly chilly 5 degrees.  Hoping to see those Jupiter bands soon.  Take the point from Stub Mandrel that at 15 degrees not the best

[FaDG] Many thanks  lack of sleep got my words mixed up. Thanks for the clarification.  Will look for a 5/3 mm eyepiece.

[Stub Mandrel] Many thanks for the advice, I could see the moons so pretty sure it was Jupiter, will read the thread provided to reset my expectations ?

[Mr Niall] Cheers, I'll not give up, although I think my daughter might.  (ill defined tangerine ?)

Thanks everyone.

 

 

[niallk]

As already said, planets are low at the moment.

Even when they are better positioned, some nights the views are a blurry mush, and then other (rarer) nights, the views can be stunning.

There's the jetstream (Google jetstream forecast) and other things like cooling your scope and not viewing across rooftops (heat plumes) which are all important too.

[Stu]

As others have said, you should be able to see some decent detail on Jupiter. I can see some just using a 65mm newt so a 130mm will be much more capable. I have a Heritage 130P and find it very good.

Atmospheric conditions count for alot, and all you can really do on this is observe as much as you can to catch the best times. Wherever possible avoid observing over houses where heat rising, and in particular central heating flumes can ruin the view. The best views from my garden are normally where planets are over the gaps between my house and the neighbours. If you can, try observing on grass and away from houses.

I do think it would be worth considering a better eyepiece. The ones that come as standard are not always the highest quality and cheap Barlows can spoil the views even more. Planets are small objects (when viewed from Earth!) So need high powers to view them properly. At low power they can just appear as a white disk; getting the power up just enough can help reveal the detail.

If you took x130 as a target, a 5mm eyepiece would get you there. Your scope should cope with that no problem. The BST Starguiders have a good reputation and at £47 are good value.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-5mm-ed-eyepiece.html

Worth a go I would say.

[Ignoro]

I have a similar scope, SW heritage 130p. I actually think yours is superior because it's full tube and has a better focuser...

Last summer (newbie) I've enjoyed Jupiter and Saturn with only 10mm stock eyepiece and the views of Jupiter were very nice especially in twilight (Jupiter), Mars is nothing special (even with bigger scopes), Venus is fun and Mercury is just too bright. I've even located Uranus and Neptune, they were just dots, but the thrill was huge after I found them...

Last weekend I've observed DSOs like the Double cluster (spectacular), Orion nebula (still on the sky), M3 (not very sharp but visible, maybe it was my fault, I'll try again later), Beehive cluster in Cancer etc... So I think you should have plenty to enjoy with a 130p, you just need patience, some experience and good viewing conditions...

I think that 10mm eyepiece with Barlow 2x might be a bit too much if the seeing is not very good and planets are lower... 

It's nice to have binoculars when observing, especially when there are 2 or more people on one scope...

I use SkySafari on phone and Stellarium on desktop to locate objects...

Enjoy