Eye piece problem with Sky watcher heritage 130p.

[sork]

Hi,

So my son got a Sky watcher heritage 130p and it works quite good. There is a problem when using the 10mm eyepiece though. When centering on a planet, like Mars or Jupiter, and using focus a strange disc shows up. It looks as my rough sketch (but the circles are actual circles and not my woobly like my drawing). I am thinking if we use it wrong or some other error. But its strange since there is no problem when looking at the moon for instance. When the use the other eye piece, this don' t happen at all. Thankful for help.

Edited October 15, 2022 by sork

[Ags]

This means you are out of focus, and are bringing the secondary mirror into focus.

To get the planet in focus, try firstly to make the yellow circle in your diagram as small as possible. In a Heritage 130 with a 10 mm eyepiece, a planet will be very small 😀

Welcome to the forum!

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @sork and welcome to SGL. 

What is the view like with the 25mm ?
The supplied SkyWatcher 10mm's are not the best of e/p's.

If they are not parfocal, you will need to re-focus.

[sork]

Ok, thanks. I was pretty sure we were doing something wrong. 

 

Well, the view is not anything like the pictures. Yet at least :]. But we are happy with it anyway. It is a learning process. I am going to practice some with focusing and magnifying towards a object in the distance during the daylight to get the hang of it. The moon looks awesome though. 

Christmas is coming up, you got any suggestions for better eyepieces or something else? I am thinking about a barlow lense or something like that. 

 

[cajen2]

I'd say a better eyepiece at higher mags is your first priority. Any idea of budget? A standard recommendation for beginners is a BST Starguider - that was the first EP I bought for your scope's bigger brother, the 150p. The 8mm one is a good place to start and replace the somewhat awful SW 10mm.

Edited October 16, 2022 by cajen2

[RT65CB-SWL]

A religious festival/season is nearly upon us. Do not put an eyepiece set on the list of Xmas pressies you would like to receive. You may not get use all of them! - IMHO buy separate individual eyepieces. Below is just a small selection of what I currently have and use in my collection:

TeleVue...
3x Plossl's... 8mm - 13mm - 15mm
2x Radian's... 6mm - 8mm
2x Nagler's... 13mm [Type 1 & Type 6}
1x Nagler... 3-6mm zoom

Meade... 
3x Plossl's... 9.7mm - 20mm - 24mm
1x UWA... 8.8mm [series 4000] 

other 'bits & bobs'...
2x AB*... 18mm WA
1x AB*...  7-21mm zoom
1x AE**.. 1.25" Magni-Mate [x1.6]
1x AE**... 1.25" focal reducer [x0.6]
...plus a few filters

 

*AB = AstroBoot.            **AE = Astro-Engineering.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Philip R

[Ricochet]

15 hours ago, sork said:

I am going to practice some with focusing and magnifying

There is no magnifying, the combination of a particular eyepiece and the telescope provides a fixed magnification. This is probably where you are going wrong, there is only focussing. As @Ags has said, you must adjust the focuser to make the image as small as possible. The only way to make the image larger is to use an eyepiece with a smaller focal length, i.e. the 10mm eyepiece will give a larger image than the 25mm. 

[Geoff_L]

15 hours ago, cajen2 said:

I'd say a better eyepiece at higher mags is your first priority. Any idea of budget? A standard recommendation for beginners is a BST Starguider - that was the first EP I bought for your scope's bigger brother, the 150p. The 8mm one is a good place to start and replace the somewhat awful SW 10mm.

Another vote for BST Starguiders. FWIW, I have a 150 PDS and the 5mm Starguider is pretty good with that. Remember that the theoretical maximum magnification is twice the objective diameter in millimetres, so that's 260x for a 130mm OTA. For an f/5 'scope, this will be achieved with a 2.5mm eyepiece -- but a word of caution, below 5mm, eyepieces can be tricky. For example, I have a 3.2mm Starguider and the reflection of the blood vessels at the back of my eye can mess up the view of bright objects (like the Moon and planets). For this reason, 5mm is the smallest eyepiece I tend to use; and very occasionally, I'll add a barlow to push to the 'scope futher.

[JOC]

I would take a look at the pictures on the first page of this thread and remember they are with a telescope of 8" diameter - far larger than yours - your view could make the planets even smaller.

It is also worth bearing in mind that each EP will require a different focus.

Edited October 22, 2022 by JOC

[TrevShed119]

I also have the Heritage 130P and I went with the 8mm BST (from Auntie FLO) which is nicely made. I do still use the two provided - 25mm and 10mm - and a cheapo 20mm that came from Svbony, but most of my viewing is with the 25mm. I am in a poor light area but Jupiter and the gallilean moons are nice and clear.  I think my next purchase will be a lower mag - 32 or 40. I do love this heritage scope.