Wobbly tripod

[BenB]

I bought a Celestron 80mm portable refractor telescope for my daughter and we were absolutely delighted to see Jupiter over Christmas. However, alignment is really difficult and the tripod is no good. The telescope has a standard sort of camera quick lock mount, is there a tripod you would recommend like an AZ3 which will work with my telescope ,,, and also a pair of binoculars. I can’t be sure from the website that the AZ3 works with a camera mount , it says it does but has no pictures. 

Also is there a way to improve the detail of what we can see, Jupiter looked like a white circle, it was amazing to see something that wasn’t a star tiny dot or the moon , but we couldn’t see any colour really. I would be happy to buy a bigger eye piece  to make things more comfortable if it can be transferred to an upgraded scope later on.

we live in Reading so should we go to a shop to talk it through ?

 

[Elp]

Any eyepiece upgrade from the supplied ones will be better. BST starguiders are a good and fairly cheap start.

I've found a moon variable polarising filter works quite well, they are two polarised cells which screw together and you can turn the one to adjust the polarising effect (minimise brightness of light), this allows you to see the bands a bit better as well as the moon quite comfortably without being blinded by the reflected light.

Or you can use a Barlow lens which effectively doubles your eyepiece strength whilst extending the focal length of your scope therefore making the view dimmer, but I would advise against a Barlow as they aren't all created equal and a dedicated eyepiece will always offer better views.

Any sturdy thick steel leg section or wooden tripod will be better than the one supplied with most scopes.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Elp

[AstroKeith]

Did you see the moons of Jupiter?

I think that scope is primarily intended for terrestrial use. (Did it come with the erect image diagonal)

The focal length of the scope (400mm) is rather short and makes achieving higher magnifications difficult. The eyepieces supplied will be amongst the lowest quality I'm afraid.  With the supplied eyepieces the magnification was very low (x20 & x40) and the image of Jupiter rather bright to see and detail at that small size.

Much better eyepieces are going to cost something like you paid for the scope. You could try a 4 or 6mm Celestron Omni plossl - about £40.

Another approach is to only observe 'bigger' targets. the Moon, Pleiades, Andromeda Galaxy, Orion Nebula, Bee hive

If you can separate the camera style bracket from the tripod, you could probably attach to almost any other mount.

Good luck!

[Artik]

1 hour ago, BenB said:

I bought a Celestron 80mm portable refractor telescope for my daughter and we were absolutely delighted to see Jupiter over Christmas. However, alignment is really difficult and the tripod is no good. The telescope has a standard sort of camera quick lock mount, is there a tripod you would recommend like an AZ3 which will work with my telescope ,,, and also a pair of binoculars. I can’t be sure from the website that the AZ3 works with a camera mount , it says it does but has no pictures.

 

It is Celestron Travel Scope? I assume from description it is. IIRC it should have both 1/4 screw and dovetail for proper mount.

Of course getting a better mount would help a lot.

I own a similar scope but 60mm I got for travel. There are few things to make it easier

1. Never extend central column. It must be all the way down
2. If you can put on table with all legs folded it would vastly improve the stability
3. If you have legs extended put something on one of the legs (bag or pillow - something that creates friction - it would reduce wobbling)

However the most important thing is to add counterbalance. I uses a small rope, several rubber bands, added small hook in the bottom. This counterbalance rope (you need to make it adjustable length) would both introduce some stability and allow to not use clutch/or very light clutch at all. I could track the targets with ease even at x100.

See the small video I did below.

Regarding Jupiter - if you add some magnification (lets say 6mm eyepiece) you should be able to see cloud bands and in general 80mm is decent aperture so you can have quite lots of fun with it including seeing some deep space objects.

 

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @BenB & daughter and welcome to SGL. 

Where about in Reading are you? - check out https://readingastro.org.uk/ 
Take your 'scope to the next 'outreach' meeting [Fri. 27th. Jan. 2023] or 'main' meeting [Sat. 21st Jan. 2023].
Not sure whether I will be in attendance for either due to work commitments. Someone will be able to help.

Depending on the tripod, I find it is good practice not to fully extend the legs. Also, getting a variable polarising filter will reduce the bright glare from the Moon when it has gone beyond half phase or the bright planets, i.e. Venus [max. magnitude -4.5] and Jupiter [max. magnitude -2.5].

[BenB]

Oh my goodness have I never seen such helpful replies. Thankyou everyone. I will take them all on board. Just to say no we didn’t see the moons of Jupiter but, and feel free to laugh, but I didn’t think to look or where to look, I had no idea they were so far apart from Jupiter. I had such back ache by the time we got it in view it was a miracle really. And, yes it’s a travel scope but it has a 45 degree bend which helps. We’ll come along to the Reading meet-up and learn some more about eyepieces etc we can get. A chair…! That’s definitely something we were missing too 

[RT65CB-SWL]

1 hour ago, BenB said:

Oh my goodness have I never seen such helpful replies. Thankyou everyone. I will take them all on board. Just to say no we didn’t see the moons of Jupiter but, and feel free to laugh, but I didn’t think to look or where to look, I had no idea they were so far apart from Jupiter. I had such back ache by the time we got it in view it was a miracle really. And, yes it’s a travel scope but it has a 45 degree bend which helps. We’ll come along to the Reading meet-up and learn some more about eyepieces etc we can get. A chair…! That’s definitely something we were missing too 

Hi again @BenB

The 45 degree 'bend' / diagonal is OK for terrestrial use. For astronomy use you will benefit by getting a 90 degree star diagonal.
Also note the image will be right way up and east/west or left/right will be reversed.