zoom / focus?

[Sci Fi Guy]

Afternoon all.

I was out the other night and was looking at M42, and I was wondering how I increase the size of the image in my scope.

I have a C8, and I grasp the concept of focusing to zoom between near and far objects, but is there a way to sort of 'zoom in' on an object? Is that essentially what a Barlow is for?

Incidentally, seeing M42 for the first time 'in the flesh' was absolutely amazing! :cheers:

[themos]

focusing to zoom between near and far objects,

Well, we don't call that zooming really. To change the magnification you either put a Barlow lens in the scope and put your eyepiece in the Barlow or you use an eyepiece of different focal length, the shorter the length the greater the magnification (also called "power"). There are zoom eyepieces that work like zoom lenses for cameras, you turn the mechanism and it changes the focal length.