I cant see anything clearly with my new Telescope. Please help me?

Question

Hello everyone. I just got a new scope for my birthday. Ive never looked at the stars before but I love astronomy. I aimed at Jupiter tonite and was dissapointed in the result that I got. No matter what lens I used the planet never changed shape from a round ball of light. Very blurry as well. From what I can tell my scope only has one focus. Here is all the info about my scope...

Science Tech
Precision Optics 525 Power
Astrolon Telescope.

My Lens' : 20mm, 12.5mm, 9mm, 4mm. There power is shown as 35x,56x,78x,and 175x respectivly.
It also came with a 3x Barlow. With the Barlow, the power is listed as 105x, 168x, 233x, 525x respectivly.

What am I doing wrong? Shouldnt I been able to see Jupiter clearly. I did try many other stars and same result. The only really exciting thing I did see was 2 of Jupiters moons that were lined up almost perfectally. Did my wife buy me a piece of junk, or was it just a bad night, or do I need different lens'. Please let me know asap.

I did try my scope without the Barlow. I started at 20x. Got Jupiter dead on. Went to all lower lens' then put in the barlow. Nothing really changed at all besides the size of the big blurry ball of light in my lens.

I have not looked at the moon yet. I got the scope today and there is no moon :(

Answer 1

Are you able to see the details of the moon clearly? If so, your telescope is working properly. The other major planets in our solar system are a long ways off from earth and, as a result, lower magnification lens are not going to provide much size or image detail. If you go to a higher power lens, eyepiece, then the image size will increase along with details but, the amount of light actually available for forming the image will decrease. This can be problematic. It happens pretty much with high-power small mirror telescopes. In order to get good image display of distant planets, it is generally necessary to have a telescope with a mirror size on the order of no less than 10," minimum. A 4 or 5 inch mirror just doesn't gather an adequate amount of light for good detailed image development, in my opinion.

I suggest that you keep experimenting and observing as the problem also might be just a matter of experience.

Answer 2

First of all know that telescopes are kind of quirky sometimes, and viewing is hard. If you have a 3x barlow thats great but if you out max your telescope all you will see is blur. I did a google search for your telescope and from what I see it is really a beginner scope. With that you are not going to get 525x magnification. Here is your best bet before you determine that your scope is a piece of junk as you say. First leave the barlow out of it for right now till you can get something in sight. Next make sure your telescope has acclimated to the weather. Best viewing after twenty minutes or so outside. Start with your 20mm lens and get whatever you are looking at in view. Then move to 12.5mm so on and so forth. Your best viewing is when things are overhead, if they are low on the horizon the earths crust will damage the view just with the heat and the distortion of the atmosphere.

To put it in perspective, I have a 6" Dobsonian Reflector telescope. And its max magnification is only 450 or so. So I honestly think 525x is just way out of that scopes range.

Hope that helped

Answer 3

It's always sad. Like an unloved puppy. Especially when the wife buys the scope for her hubby. That's a loving thing, but trying to live within one's means and not really knowing what they are buying can yield unhappy results.

You didn't mention the size of the primary, but I guess it is around 70 mm, right? If so, the large magnifications will always be a disappointment. That 4mm eyepiece is a joke. Just put in so they could advertise big magnifications, which you have discovered are lousy quality. Usually you will get no more detail with the higher mags than with the lower. In fact, for many objects, you might prefer the lower mag because it seems to be a clearer image.

You may have had an unreasonable expectation for the telescope.Sorry. But it's not a total loss. You should find it very good for observing the moon. You should be able to see all four of the Galilean moons of Jupiter, no sweat. And the rings of Saturn will look like when Galileo saw them: "protuberances" from the planet, like ears. But they won't look that good for a few years yet.

Venus should be good when you get a chance. You should be able to see its phases, but because it is so bright, you may get a lot of flare that makes it hard to resolve. Best of luck but I'm afraid if you really want to see the sky in impressive detail, you will need an 8" reflector or better. Consider saving money by buying the optics and building your own Dobsonian.

What the first two told you is good info. You will probably use the barlow less and less. I have a 12.5 inch dobsonian and the highest magnification I use is about 130x most of the time. The really cool eyepiece I have is the 50 mm Plossl which is great for clusters and galaxies, wide field but low mag.

Answer 4

There are several good answers here, and I won't repeat. But I'll summarize the parts I feel are important.

* The scope you have isn't the greatest, though it's where many people start. Stick to low magnification, and it isn't a waste of time. Just don't let the quality deter you from following up on your interest in amateur astronomy!

* Use "averted vision" to see better. That means looking out of the corner of your eye, and training yourself to see that way. First, you can do this by looking at Pleides naked eye. Once you master this, you'll be able to see more detail when you look at planets through a quality telescope.

* You will be limited as to how much you can see not only because of quality, but because of the size.

* Learn the heavens naked eye and via binoculars, and you will appreciate the views through telescopes. Also, you can always sneak off to view the heavens naked eye. Taking along at telescope usually requires more time and effort.

*** Contact a local astronomy club, and attend a star party. People at star parties are very welcoming and friendly, and you will almost certainly be allowed to look through a variety of telescopes so you can get an idea of what you're "supposed to see". They will also be able to answer your questions much better than anyone can using Yahoo Answers.

Answer 5

1. Yahoo Answers is a terrible place to try to get information about telescopes. Most of the people here know nothing about telescopes, and will make wild guesses. For good solid information from knowledgable people, try a group like this:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/telescopes/

2. I'm sorry to say that your scope is of very poor quality. It hardly qualifies even as a toy. Don't bother even trying the Barlow lens or any of the short-focal-length eyepieces, as they won't show you anything. The 20mm eyepiece may give you some basic views. The telescope should have come with a diagonal (right angle eyepiece attachment) which you should always use to get the proper focus...this may be why Jupiter is only a fuzzy ball of light.

3. If at all possible, try to return the telescope to where your wife bought it, and look into buying one from a store which specializes in telescopes, either locally or online. Orion is a particularly good online store:
http://www.telescope.com/

4. You are not doing anything wrong. The people who are doing wrong are the people who import these junk scopes and sell them to well-meaning people like your wife. A good telescope is not terribly expensive ($200 to $300) and is easy to use. Here is one I particularly recommend:
http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=238462&itemType=PRODUCT&RS=1&keyword=09185

Answer 6

If you can see buildings with it, there's no reason you shouldn't be seeing planets and other objects in the sky. You will certainly need to adjust the focus, and you will probably need to align the finder. You do that by pointing the scope at an object at least a quarter of a mile away, locking it in place, and then adjusting the finder screws until the finder is pointing exactly at the same object. Are you sure you are pointing at a planet? Venus is brilliant in the west in the early evening, but only shows a featureless gibbous disk in a telescope. Mars and Saturn are just to the east of Venus, but Mars is so far away that it is just a tiny dot and Saturn's rings are almost edge on to us, so look like a toothpick through a cocktail onion. Jupiter rises in the southeast around midnight and should show at least one band on its disk and up to four tiny moons alongside. The planets will all be tiny in the 20mm eyepiece; once you have a planet centred, switch to the 10mm eyepiece. I assume your scope has a 650mm focal length. This is primarily a scope for deep sky observing and needs a very short focal length eyepiece or a Barlow lens to see the planets in any detail.

Answer 7

I agree with the others that that 'scope is not exactly top dog, but another factor comes into play here. Looking through a telescope is one thing, seeing what you are looking at is something else.
I found that the old method of sketching what you see causes you to see more with less.
See if you can find a copy of the Amateur Amateur Astronomers hand book by Sidgwick,
I think it's out of print but should be available used;.
After spending some time getting all you can out of this scope (at the lower powers) and using binoculars, upgrade. Don't fall prey to aperture envy.
Hope it helps a little.

Answer 8

I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like the kind of telescope you want. Your focal length is very short and it's a pretty small aperture, so your maximum useful maginification is only about 150, so pretty much the only worthwhile eyepieces are the 35x, 56x and 78x without the barlow, and really probably the 78x is pushing it.

a little note, any telescope that tries to sell itself on magnification or power is probably not very good.

if you're really into astronomy but can't afford a good telescope, you should get a good pair of binoculars like the Celestron SkyMaster 15x70. Very good, about $70.

Answer 9

Well I hate to disappoint you but this isn't a serious telescope. It's more like a toy. But whoever bought it for you did spend almost $100 and wanted you to be happy but probably didn't know much about telescopes.

I'll tell you a little about telescopes, and why you can't see anything in yours.

Someday you'll have enough money to buy a really good telescope and here is what you should know.

A good telescope usually costs at least $300. Instead of advertising how powerful they are, they advertise how much aperture they have. Aperture is another way of saying "the size of the lens or mirror". Yours has an aperture of 60mm, or 2.36"

Most people think that power is what makes a telescope good, but they're wrong. Aperture makes a telescope good!

You see,many things in space, like galaxies and nebulas, are dim, and to see them, you have to make them brighter. A telescope is like a light funnel. It collects light that has spread out from the galaxy or nebula or whatever else, and condenses it down to make the object brighter. When you burn things with a magnifying glass you are doing the same thing. The lens of the magnifying glass collects the sun light spread out over the size of the magnifying glass and condenses it down to a bright little point. A galaxy may actually take up an area of the sky from Earth that looks to be about the size of full moon, but it's too dim to see without a telescope.

Because many things in space aren't very small in the sky (just dim), they don't need to be magnified much. The only thing that you have to use a lot of magnification on are the planets...if you want to see a lot of detail.

It's hard to use high magnification because little vibrations of the telescope will appear as big shakes and you also magnify the turbulence in the atmosphere. You will also exceed the resolving ability of your telescope if you use too powerful eyepieces. This means that you can use the eyepiece that gives you the 525x power or whatever but as you found out, the image will be blurry.

So telescopes make things brighter. The bigger the lens or mirror in the telescope, the brighter it will make things.
It will also magnify things a little (make things bigger) but the telescope only does half the job of magnifying. The eyepiece does the other half, as you've found out.

More aperture also means more resolving ability so the larger telescopes can use higher powered eyepieces.

Good telescopes also come on sturdy mounts. You might have noticed that it's difficult to point your telescope at things in the sky. It's much easy to do this with serious telescope. The mounts are very stable and don't shake and they move very smoothly. Not only that, but many of them have slow motion knobs so you can make the telescope turn just a little bit.

So maybe next year you can ask for a good telescope. I recommend to start with you get the Orion XT6 Classic. It's a 6" dobsonian reflector. It's easy to use and you will be able to see lots of things, including some detail on Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, the ring nebula, the helix nebula, the orion nebula, some detail on Mars, a few galaxies, and many star clusters. 6" is the aperture...or diameter of the mirror. It costs about $269 but this is really cheap for a real telescope. You can find it at http://www.oriontelescopes.com

If they can't afford this, you should at least get a good pair of 7x50 binoculars. You will still be able to see many star clusters.

Also keep in mind that galaxies and nebulas in telescopes don't look like they do in pictures because cameras can see more detail than the human eye.

You should look at some astronomy magazines such as "Astronomy" or "Sky and Telescope" to learn more about astronomy and serious telescopes.

Also find out about your local astronomical society and go to one of their star parties so you can look through their telescopes. They may even let you borrow one!

You can go to http://members.aol.com/siriusbc/telescopes.htm to learn more about telescopes in depth.

Also look at the telescope at http://www.celestron.com and http://www.meade.com

Clear Skies!

Answer 10

In order to get enough light into your telescope for excellent viewing of distant planets you will need at least
10 Inch Reflector Telescope - Minimum.
12 Inch Reflector Telescope - Works satisfactory to good,
depending upon accessories.

For your particular telescope I would spend a lot of time studying the Moon with your various accessories, and take it to a lake or the ocean to look at distant ships and vessels at sea. Learn to work the focus knob slowly and carefully. Your telescope is limited by the size of the opening at the end where the light comes in... Nothing you do will change that basic limitation, so you must deal with it, and learn its capabilities, as well as its limitations.