Help for a beginner!

[Button Moon]

Hello

I got my first telescope in March. It's a Skywatcher Skymax 127 Supatrak. It has a focal length of 1500mm. A 1.25" star diagonal. With it I got two lenses a super 25mm wide angle long eye relief and a super 10mm long eye relief and a x2 barlow lens. I've been playing around with it and have looked at the moon and also found saturn which was really tiny using the 25 the 10 and the 10 with the barlow lens.

I'm just wondering were to go from here. Should I buy some more lenses? Or filters? I'm thinking of getting that book Turn Left At Orion. I'd just like some advice on what to do next when you've had a little play and want to start looking seriously! But I really am a beginner and don't know anything about lenses or filters or anything .

Thanks

P.S I'd like to see saturn and any other planets abit bigger!

[barkis]

Using your 10mm eyepiece and your Barlow gives you a magnification of about 300x. The UK skies will be generous if they allow you to exploit the normal limit of 50x per inch of aperture. In your case 250x magnification. The 10mm Barlow combination takes you above the limit. Of course, should the skies be exceptional, and that is a miracle situation, and therefore a rarity. Extreme magnification is not practicable. If you are not happy with the Image size with your most powerful combination, I don't know where you go from there.

Imaging may afford you a way out, but I expect you want the WOW factor at the eyepiece.. Detail is a function of the telescopes objective. ie, the lens, or mirror. The bigger the objective, the more you see. That's why there are big telescopes.

Ron.

[Doc]

As Ron said the only means is more aperture.

[Leedsgreen]

You might want to try buying a cheap web-cam. I don't know if the Philips SPC900NC is still available but I bought one a while back (and fitted a 1.25" adapter), which enables capture of decent images. The web-cam also has the advantage of shooting around 5 fps (without image compression). This means you can import them into Registax (free software to stack multiple images), greatly enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio of the image. What this really means is that the final image is quite superb and remarkably detailed. Registax web-site is found here:

RegiStax- Free image processing software

Hope this helps (but, be warned, it can become a little addictive)!

Cheers,

Nick

[Whippy]

Why not get Turn Left at Orion and search out a few more objects? And if you've got a bit of spare cash, perhaps maybe a couple of decent Plossl or Orthoscopic eyepieces at different focal lengths to what you already have could give you a bit of variation in your viewing experience too.

Tony..

[Capricorn]

Saturn is small, it a long long way away.

Jupiter is closer and bigger just not really visible at present as it is a morning object.

Mars is also a morning object.

After that everything is further away and so small.

Get a book that suits you to find objects in the sky. I have TLAO but find I use The Monthly Sky Guide more, it suits me better.

Also have a look at Wikipedia and get the Messier Object list and choose some things to locate and see.

Yesterday I was using tonightssky.com to see what was visible where I am, useful for an immediate list. If you make the horizon say 45 the objects should be fairly high. If you try it then don't ask for everything as the list supplied will just be too long. Also know your Lat+Long ang set the time to BST.

[The Warthog]

You could consider getting a 15mm ep in the same series as you have, or better if you can afford it. With the Barlow, that would give you 200x, which you should be able to handle in average skies. I find 200x excellent for the moon, and good on planets, with my 150mm scope. With the 15mm ep you will have a good look at a lot of DSOs at 100x.

[PaulG]

Out of all my telecopes I have looked through, Saturn looks small but perfectly formed.

One of the better views was with my 70mm refractor last year at 90x.

It looked very small but quite crisp.

Paul