Amatuer Astronomer?

Question

I'm using a 600x Newtonian Reflector made by Edu Science that I had for Christmas,so far I've just about seen the Moon and I want to see Planets now,so I decided to observe Jupiter starting at a Magnification of F=20mm and Jupiter appeard as a small ball of white light,giving of the odd red glowing every ten seconds.So then I switched Magnification to a F= 12.5mm and it still appeared as a ball of light so again I put in a more pwerful lens coming up to F=9mm and still it appeared as a ball of light,and then I stuck in a F= 4mm and still it was a ball of LIGHT! with no detail of any could patterns.So then I went extreme and then stuck in a 3.36X Barlow Lens combned with a 4mm and then I could'nt see anything.Is my scope powerful enough to see Jupiter?

Answer 1

First, you should be aware that this telescope is a children's toy, and not a real telescope...the only place I've ever seen this brand on sale is at Toys'R'Us. Any telescope advertised by its magnification is likely to be a toy or of very limited quality; real telescopes are measured by the diameter of their objective lens or mirror. It's very unlikely that your telescope will work with any eyepiece other than the 20mm, and certainly not with the Barlow lens. The lenses of these cheap telescopes are mostly made of plastic, and are incapable of providing sharp images. To get a telescope that works, you should buy it from a store which specializes in telescopes, either local or online, not a toy or department store.

With the 20mm eyepiece, you should be able to see Jupiter's brightest moons (up to 4 of them) arrayed on either side of the planet. Look closely at the ball of light and, once your eye gets used to the glare, you may be able to see a dark band on the lower half of the planet. Jupiter's cloud belts change from year to year, and this year there is only a single belt visible in small telescopes.

I'm unable to explain the red glow you're seeing every ten seconds; this could be because Jupiter is low in the sky and affected by atmospheric turbulence. I've been observing Jupiter for decades with many different quality telescopes, and I've never seen such a glow.

Answer 2

Magnification is not the main thing determining what you see. The atmosphere of the earth very rarely allows a magnification above 300x simply because of turbulence. That is true even with large amateur scopes. For this reason, you should probably not use the 4mm lens and very rarely use the 9mm lens.

You don't mention how large the objective on your scope is (and I don't see it on a quick search of the web). This is what determines how much light gets into your scope and also how much resolution you can get. A larger objective gives more resolution. I'm guessing yours is a 3" or 4". In that case, you probably never will go above about a 150-200x magnification. Your scope simply can't handle it effectively.

Now to the more technical questions: did you collimate your scope? In other words, did you make sure all the mirrors and lenses are aligned? If not, this could easily explain why you only saw a ball of light. Even slight misalignment can drastically reduce the things you can see. This wouldn't be as noticeable for the moon, but for planets, it is crucial!

Here something to try: look at a star through your scope. Get it as focused as you can. Is the image pointlike? If not, you have to adjust your alignment. Now move it very slightly out of focus. Is the blur you get circular? If not, you guessed it, you have to align your scope.

You also don't mention the conditions under which you are observing. Are there sources of heat nearby like parking lots? The heat rising can make your images swim to the point you won't be able to see details on planets. Did you let your scope cool? Even the heat rising inside the tube (tube currents) can mess up an image. Now look at a star without your scope. Does it twinkle? If it does, there is turbulence in the atmosphere and you will be magnifying that.

As you can see, there are a lot of things that can make it so all you see is a ball of light. I can't say which you are experiencing, but don't give up. Learn how to align your scope. Learn how to tell when the sky is calm and clear. Don't use the high magnification lenses (I know that hurts, but they won't do anything for you). While it can be frustrating to track down the problem, it is also rewarding once you finally get that view of the cloud bands!

Good Luck!

Answer 3

It's obviously powerful enough to see Jupiter because you've seen it. How much can you see is the question. I've done some research. Your telescope probably has a mirror of 76mm (3 inches).

Firstly, the maximum useful magnification of a scope is 50X or 60X per inch of aperture. Therefore in darkest skies, and good observing conditions, your scope is capable of 180X. Any more than this and the image suffers, because you're not only magnifying the object, but also any imperfections in the optics and any unsteadiness in the atmosphere.

Secondly, that only applies in a scope with excellent optics. Your scope (there's no nice way of putting this) is not high quality. I only mention this because you won't get much out of cranking the power up.

If your scope has a focal length of 900mm (it might be 700), then the mag with a 20mm eyepiece is 900/20, or 45X. That should be plenty to see two main cloud bands on the small disk of Jupiter if you look patiently and carefully. Make sure the focus is right. When you focus, the image should get smaller, then larger. When it's smallest is when it's focussed. (Sorry if I'm insulting your intelligence.)

Through the 12.5mm, I think it's 72X, but the field of view in the eyepiece is also smaller, so it's harder to get the image in there and keep it there. You've probably noticed. The 20mm with the barlow will give about 150X, and the field of view will still be larger than the 9mm eyepiece.

See how you go, but, in honesty, don't expect too much from anything but the moon.

Answer 4

This is from the BBC Norfolk site re budget telescopes:

"Without knowing the exact model or specification of the telescope in question, it is hard to be certain what the resultant magnification of the system will be.

To work out the magnification, you take the focal length of the telescope (this is typically stated on the side of such telescopes on a sticker) and divide it by the focal length of the eyepiece (such as 25mm or 4mm).

The best I can do is guess at the magnification you will achieve with the 12.5mm eyepiece as being around 50x to 75x. This should be adequate to see the rings of Saturn.

The three eyepieces you would get will give you a range of magnifications from the 25mm giving the lowest magnification to the 4mm giving the highest magnification.

However, I suspect that the 4mm eyepiece will not give a very bright and sharp image. Eyepieces of this focal length need a very high quality telescope to be of use.

A final word, telescopes from department stores can be of questionable quality. Often the lenses are made of plastic rather than glass and can yield rather disappointing results.
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Answer 5

It's not the magnification that is the key factor but the resolution. That will be determined by the size of your scope. A small scope can magnify the image loads, but if it doesn't have the resolution you'll just get a big fuzzy image. Absolutely any telescope is good enough to see the banding on Jupiter, provided it is set up correctly and used with an appropriate magnification.

The other factor is the seeing, which is basically the stillness of the air. On a bad day the air can be so turbulent that you can't see much on Jupiter. The seeing is also influenced by your viewing location. If you're near a busy road, looking over a house or have a cup of tea near the end of your scope you'll never get good seeing.

So, in summary, your telescope is certainly good enough to see Jupiter, provided you set it up right. Just banging up the magnification is not the right way to go about getting the best results, I'm afraid.

Answer 6

Jupiter and it's moons, the rings of Saturn, and the phases of Mercury and Venus all can be observed with a telescope as low as 30 power, if the quality of the optics is decent (Galileo saw these things with a 30 power telescope with very poor optics by today's standards). Jupiter and Venus are the easiest to observe for a first-timer. Jupiter is in excellent viewing position right now.

Galaxies (and other Messier objects) can also be seen with such a simple telescope, but most require more magnification. You must know where to look, because even the best are faint to the unaided eye. Try looking at the middle star of Orion's sword, and go from there.

Have you tried observing some earth objects with your telescope? It sounds like you have some kind of optical problem.

Answer 7

I'm not familiar with this story so I'm not sure what the lights where. But to answer your question, telescopes are designed to look at objects that are very far away. Just because a telescope can resolve an object in space that is very far away, doesn't mean it will be able to see an object that is very close any better. The Hubble space telescope has given us views of galaxies over 13 billion light years away. A light year is more than 6 trillion miles. Yet the telescope can't resolve any object on the moon smaller than the size of a football field. And the moon is only 240,000 miles away. Maybe someone looked at the lights with binoculars and saw that they where balloons like you said. In that case there would have been nothing for them to report.