Why can't I see more than points of light in my telescope?

Question

I have a Dobsonian SkyQuest XT8 telescope and have seen the Orion Nebula, the moon, pleiades, and saturn. However, lately, I have been getting bored - even though I know I shouldn't be! - because everywhere I attempt to look, the view is just more points of light. I realize that I won't see Hubble images, but shouldn't I be seeing a little more than points of light (even for the Andromeda galaxy)? Perhaps it is my eyepieces? I would greatly appreciate any help on the subject.

Answer 1

In an amateur telescope, most of the sky is just stars. To find something interesting to look at, you must be persistent, or know where to look. The Messier objects are all fairly bright (as deep space objects go) and are a good place to start observing. Here's a site with a collection of finder charts: http://www.utahskies.org/deepsky/messier/charts/messierTelradFrameSet.html
You will need to know the constellations or have a planisphere or small sky atlas to orient yourself to use these. And here's a site to tell you what to expect and what's available right now: http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/12months/12months.html

You will have the best results in a dark sky. If you are in or near a city, galaxies will be hard to see. Some things, such as M13 in Hercules, will be visible from almost anywhere. Good luck and clear skies.

Answer 2

Unless it is a larger (or closer) object, such as a nebula (many light-years across), a planet (close by), you wont see more than points of light.

Stars are points of light and that is 99% of whats up there. Nebulas and planets are the primary stuff you can see detail on, with any telescope.

While big-time telescopes (hubble) can see more is because of their huge magnification power, based on their very large lenses, flawless mirrors, and ability to be above the earth's atmosphere.

Also, many images that NASA and others release are slightly altered - color is added to make them more interesting. In addition, the cool new stuff that they are findind, quasars, extra-solar planets, black holes, ect - are found using radio, xray, and similiar telescopes - not visible light based.

The only other thing that you can do with yours is experiment with exposure pictures. By taking a long-exposure picture through you scope, additional details of nebula and planets will become visible. The orion nebula can actually appear several times its size, and increase in color depth. Many common photos of nebulas are taken this way. You will need to read up to see what to do - making the telescope follow the movement of the sky, timing the camera, not over-exposing, etc.

Answer 3

Check out the Messier objects, and double stars. Try taking some photos. Join an astronomy club. Take your scope on a camping trip out under really dark skies. Light pollution maybe the problem and not your eyepieces. One thing I have learned from just a few years of observing is that the longer you look at an object, the more you see, especially with globular clusters which show up pretty well even under moderately dark Skies.

Answer 4

If you are asking, as it sounds, why you can't see the stars as disks or with more color or detail, instead of how to find more interesting objects to look at, there is a reason. The amount of light your telescope is gathering is only a tiny fraction of the out put of the object--you can't see color until you have gathered a great deal more of the light such as happens with a long term exposure in a camera or CCD chip. The distance from the object precludes seeing enough detail to ever resolve the object as more than just a light source. The distances to even the more remote planets in our Solar System are too great to resolve Neptune and Uranus as disks. They too are simply larger points of light with a hint of color--until you look at them with an instrument with the capability of much higher magnification than your eight inch telescope is capable of. I would stop trying to see individual stars (unless you want to hunt down some binaries--several of them are quite striking) and begin to appreciate the beauty of wider fields of view with lower magnifications. Your 25mm eyepiece is well suited to some beautiful views of regions some of the other answers have pointed you to. Relax and have some fun with it.

Answer 5

In winter and summer, the Milky Way is well placed in the sky, and there are lots of bright objects, star clusters and nebulae, to look at. Spring and Fall the Milky way is close to the horizon, and we are looking out perpendicular to the plane of our galaxy. These are the times of year to view other galaxies. There are vast numbers of these, but they are mostly pretty dim, and you have to know exactly where to look. They also tend to be killed by even the slightest amount of light pollution. I'm lucky enough to live at a dark sky site, and I spent a busy hour or so tonight under the stars. I of course spent quite a bit of time looking at the Moon, Saturn, and Jupiter, but I also observed half a dozen globular clusters, four planetary nebulae, many double stars, and many galaxies. Good objects to look for, even in the city, at the moment, are the planetary nebulae M57 in Lyra, M27 in Vulpecula, the Ghost of Jupiter in Hydra, and the Cat's Eye in Draco; the globular clusters M3 in Canes Venatici, M5 in Serpens Caput, and M13 in Hercules, and bright galaxies like M104 in southern Virgo.

Answer 6

At the distances you are looking, the objects subtend such a small amount of arc that even virtually moving yourself many times closer, which is what you do with a telescope, the arc subtended is still quite small.