Help with my telescope?

Question

I recently bought a Meade NG-70 telescope. I am having trouble seeing things. I can see the moon easily but anything else just looks like little points of light. I figured those were stars. How can I locate planets? The instructions say I can see the rings of Saturn with it but all I see are points of light!

I live in Missouri. Is there a way for me to find out with planets are visible to me at certain times of year?

Thanks rives but what's the website!

Answer 1

Hi Krissy
Gee, I'm sorry you were disappointed with your scope. The Meade you mentioned is only about a 5 power scope. You can learn about finding planets with it and seeing the moon better, but it is not going to show you the rings of Saturn very well if at all. The rings can be seen easily with a scope of about 40 power.

But its OK! You can see things with your own eyes, so a 5 power scope will see those things better, right? You need to be able to find the planets, comets or other things that you can try to see. If you can see them with your eyes, then learning how to see them in the scope will enable you to use larger scopes in the future if you enjoy astronomy.

Here are a bunch of websites that try to help you find thing to look at. Give them a try and find your favorite:

Web-based Planetariums
* Heavens Above, concentrates on satellites http://www.heavens-above.com/
* SkyView Cafe, http://www.skyviewcafe.com/
* Your Sky, an online planetarium http://bavard.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/
* StarMap from Mt. Wilson http://www.mtwilson.edu/Services/StarMap/
* Starchart Map Server http://www.polaris.net/services/starchart/
* Skymaps.com, Free, high quality sky maps each month in PDF format http://www.skymaps.com/
* MyStarsLive, http://www.mystarslive.com/
* Space@home
* Horizons, an ephemeris generator from JPL http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.html (best accuracy)
* Solar System Simulator from JPL http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
* AstroViewer http://www.astroviewer.com/
* DeepSkyLive http://users.telenet.be/deepskylive/launch.html

;-D Learn about Astronomy. Learn how to find things. Then you can make use of a more powerful telescope when you get the chance.

Answer 2

Are you sure you are looking through the main telescope and not through the viewfinder ("finder scope" the one with the cross-hairs)? Follow the directions included carefully. Use the lowest power eyepiece (that will have the larger focal length number in millimeters printed on the eyepiece barrel) to find your target, and make sure the finder is aligned with the telescope.

Also, know where you are pointing. Right now of the planets only Jupiter is visible in the evening sky (bright white star to the southwest). You should be able to see the 4 galilean moons and a couple of bands on the planet even with low power.

Saturn and Mars are lost in the glare of the Sun and aren't visible right now. Mars won't be visible in the sky again until December and that will be in the wee hours before dawn. Saturn is in the process of emerging into the early morning sky but won't be visible for a couple of months still. Saturn's rings are easy to see even with magnifications as low as 25-30x.

Take it slowly. You will find yourself having better results when you use low magnification most of the time.

Answer 3

All the stars will appear as points of light with even a large telescope. So what you are seeing isn't unusual. The only planet out in the evening right now is Jupiter. If you look at it with high power, you should be able to see a *tiny* disk and up to four moons close by (sometimes you will see only one or two moons-look the next night also!). Saturn is not visible in the evening sky right now; you will have to wait to see it.

Don't expect to *ever* see the beautiful pictures of galaxies and nebula that you see in magazines and newspapers. You can't even see them in that form with the largest telescopes if all you are doing is looking through them. To get those wonderful pictures, you need to use a camera and keep it focussed on the nebula for several minutes to hours.

With your scope, you will be able to see the Orion nebula (also a winter object) and the Andromeda spiral galaxy (as a very fuzzy smear of light) as well as Jupiter and Saturn. You might be able to see the globular cluster M13 in Hercules, but don't expect to see a lot of stars in it. All the dimmer objects require a larger objective lens than just 70mm. Sorry about that. If you are in a city and have to deal with light pollution, you won't be able to see as much because of that.

Answer 4

If you bought a Meade telescope, it should have come with a cd called "Starry Night". If you didn't get it, you should have with your purchase. If you install this software, you can find out where all the planets are in the sky in your area any time of year or day. If you just want to "wing it", look for brighter "stars" that closely follow the path of the sun and moon in your area. The planets can be found in an arc that crosses the night sky from East to West, slightly to the South of vertical.

Answer 5

First of all, why does everyone buy Meade NG-70 telescopes? THey only have 70 aperture and cant see sh*t. And they're so f*cking expensive. You should get a Zhumell 8 inch Dobsonian Reflector costing only 324 bucks which can see at least 3 times more; 260x more.

Ok, back to your question.

If you live somewhere with excess lights and much air pollution, your viewing magnification could drop down 25% before it gets blurry. Also, it's hard to see the rings of Saturn if you can't even find Saturn. Get a starchart to find Saturn. I believe that Saturn will be somewhere in the constellation Gemini for a few years. And if your magnification is too low, you won't be able to see Saturn's rings, you would only be able to see Saturn as a "little point of light". THose little points of light you were seeing could be globular clusters, open clusters, galaxies, and even planets or their moons. If you can distinguish the differences between Saturn and everything else, you should be able to make it out at 50x. If you are a beginner, you have to take more time to look for it and use at least 80x. (note that i am assuming you are using good eyepieces like Plossl or Super Plossl and your viewing conditions are excellent. Modified Achromatic eyepieces really suck). With a little patience you should be able to find everything you need on the site below. Also, Mercury, and especially Mars are depressing to look at. Mercury is hard to find and looks like a lump of granite and Mars is just a red blob.

Answer 6

Try the website skypub.com for current happenings. It sounds like you are just looking at stars and not planets. Even relatively low powers 40+ will show the rings of Saturn or the disk of Jupiter.

Take a look at http://skytonight.com/observing/ataglance

According to that website, Jupiter and Saturn are not in good positions right now.

Answer 7

Definitely try for Jupiter in the early evening.

Beyond the solar system objects, there are all sorts of interesting things to see through a small telescope. I started out with a 70mm telescope, so I know you can see quite a bit with one. For starters, put in your low-power eyepiece and check out some of the fuzzy spots around Sagittarius (that's the "teapot" in the southern sky early in the night right now).

You will enjoy your telescope a lot more if you learn what's out there. A couple of good books for beginners are Turn Left at Orion and Nightwatch. Both of these have detailed instructions for finding some interesting celestial objects.

There are also some online forums where you can talk to both beginning and experienced amateur astronomers. Check out the forums at cloudynights.com (they have a beginners forum), and the telescopes group at yahoo groups.

Answer 8

seem, human beings will allow you to recognize that it truly is a baby's toy, and in evaluation to telescopes some human beings have used or equipped, it truly is. inspite of the undeniable fact that it is a few distance more effective efficient than the bare eye. i'd say when you're wondering about a telescope that length, you may want to guage a pair of binoculars. i do not recognize what funds you're talking about, yet you may want to be able to discover some good 2d-hand ones with a minimum of 50 mm lenses for the same cost. verify it out on e-bay it sluggish. I actually have considered numerous them there.

Answer 9

theres a website that shows whats avalable at that time of night & your location