How do I adjust a telescope?

Question

My son has a Mead TeleStar Telescope with one 2x Barlow lens and one MH 9mm lens. Seeing the moon is no problem at all, so when I assembled the telescope and put the lens in, I found it very easily, especially the last couple of nights of the Harvest Moon phase. It was beautiful and extremely bright. However, those nights when I heard that Mars was visible, I could not adjust the telescope to bring it into view where it was visible enough to make it out. How can I do that so we can see the plantets or planet, close enough to were we can tell that it's Mars?

Answer 1

You say you have a Meade Telestar but you didn't say whether it is the 60mm refractor or the 114mm reflecting telescope.

If you have that long skinny thing, the 60mm refractor, you're not going to see much out of Jupiter or the other planets; it will show stuff on the moon because almost any telescope will. To put thing in perspective most people with telescopes purchase a 50mm finder telescope to put on the side of their bigger scopes to look for things to see in the bigger scope. 60mm is about 4 square nches of area. The 114mm is about 15 square inches and now we're talking a scope that can deliver some nice views.

60mm: craters on moon, some nice open open star clusters (double cluster in Perseus, Pleiades), Jupiter will show as a white disk with four pinpoints next to it (when they are not transiting). Saturn and Mars will be problematic; at this level scope, Saturn might be OK but usually you have to pay much more to get good optics that will deliver at this small size. Typically it would be a kind of elongated blob. Mars might look like a whitish orange disk. You will see lots of colors, especially violet, on bright planets.

114mm: Now you can see things. Jupiter with some vanilla colored bands, the four moons, occasional black dot of a moon's shadow going across the surface, very nice view of several dozen globular clusters, very nice views of open clusters. Nice view of the Andromeda galaxy. Saturns rings become very easy. A white polar cap should be visible on Mars.

As other people have mentioned a 25mm eyepiece is definitely needed to find things, once you have it in the telescope you can switch to the 9mm. And play with the barlow if you like, but don't use it to find things.

The 60mm is probably f/10 or 600mm; a 9mm eyepiece will give 600/9=66x which could give you a nice view of Saturn if the optics are OK, but it will seem pretty dim. The 25mm eyepiece that you may have lost will give a two degree field of view (24x magnifciation, that's good and reasonable for looking for things). Best of all is a 1.25" 32mm plossl which would give your little scope about 18x and a large field of view so that "what you see in the scope is very easy to match with the sky."

A 25mm plossl eyepiece can be bought fairly cheap and if you go on a used market and say "newbie wants inexpensive 25mm plossl" it wouldn't surprise me if you found one for as little as $15 shipped. You can get a 32mm which would make it even easier to find things. That might go for around $20 shipped for a Chinese plossl. For this level of equipment and expenditure ebay is OK.

Serious people go to astromart where you can get huge deals on used equipment. There is a one-time $12 charge to register.

A beginner's used market can be found at

cloudynights.com

The text of the ad you place (which will be free) should be:

"Newbie seeks 25 or 32mm 1.25 inch plossl"

Text of message: Please email with details, I am new to the hobby, so please be patient."

You will get a lot of positive responses. A lot of people have started out with this kind of stuff and just have the eyepieces lying around. So cloudynights is a better option than ebay, astromart is a better option than cloudynights. Astromart and cloudynights have discussion forums that are extremely useful.

Now, if you feel inhibited about doing this stuff on line then you should buy from a good shop, preferably one that has some used items and can sell you an inexpensive plossl. I would suggest a toll free call to a shop that sells astronomy stuff. Again, say you're a newbie who wants a cheap Chinese 1.25 inch plossl in the 25 to 32mm range and used or a return item is OK. The dirt cheap option is to go to Hands On Optics (link below) or call 1-866-SCOPES1 . The new price is $26 to $32 for these items at Hands on Optics and as I say you can get them used for about half that; some folks will even give them away.

So start with getting a 25 to 32mm eyepiece, then finding things will become much more intuitive. As someone said it "can be done" with a 9mm--but in your scope that's less than a one degree field of view, and I don't think that's fair to a newcomer with a telescope that may not be that easy to point (wobble and backlash, and so on).


Hope that helps,
GN

Answer 2

It looks like somewhere along the way you got shortchanged an eyepiece. All Meade scopes come with a 25mm or 26mm eyepiece, and that's the one you should be using 99% of the time. You might take it back to where you bought it and tell them the package they sold you is incomplete, or try contacting Meade. Failing that, try to find a local astronomy store and see if they have any 25mm eyepieces; many telescope buyers trade these in for better eyepieces, and they have just about zero resale value, since virtually every telescope on the market comes with one. Forget the Barlow lens...it is poor quality and will only make your problems worse.

As others have said, Mars is an extremely difficult target because of its tiny size. Even when it was at its closest in 2003, many people looking through my telescope (which is a large and powerful one) were disappointed. You'll do better with Jupiter just after sunset (but it's disappearing fast behind the Sun) or Venus in the morning sky.

Answer 3

This Telescope comes with some basic Planetarium software to help you find things in the sky. I am assuming that you are using it to locate Mars and other objects.
To set up the telescope, Align the small finder scope to point at the same place as the Main Telescope does, as suggested already. Do that in the daytime by aiming at an object at least 1/2 mile away, like a distant chimney or a TV antenna etc., be a little finicky with this.
The scope originally came with two eyepieces, but it looks like you only have the 9mm MH left.
Totally forget about the Barlow lens for now, just put it aside.
You are going to have a hard time finding mars with the 9mm alone, but it can be done. Get the object in your finder's field of view and center it as best you can. If your finder and telescope were aligned perfectly, the object would now appear centered in your eyepiece also. But alas, things are never perfect. But you know that you are close. Very slightly move the telescope to sweep the area and after a few tries, the object should pop into view. Most likely, you have already found it, but did not recognize it for what it was! Planets are quite small and are often mistaken for funny looking stars by newcomers. The way you can tell you are looking at a planet and not a star, is the fact that a planet will look like a tiny disc, while a star will always remain a point of light.
Most folks are disappointed by their first look at a planet because it is so tiny and not much detail can be seen.
Observing planets requires some decent quality eyepieces. The old eyepiece designs that are often supplied with small Telescopes are really bad. The HM on your eyepiece tells us that it is a "Modified Huygens" design. Old man Huygens lived in the 1600's and that is how old this design is.
Your life will be a lot easier if you could get a couple of inexpensive, but modern eyepieces.
I am keeping very much in mind that this is basically a beginner's scope for a young person and realize that expenses need to be kept at a minimum. But many young people give up this wonderful hobby out of frustration due to marginal equipment.
The ideal for your situation would be three eyepieces, one for low power, one for high power and one for medium power observing, with the medium power eyepiece getting by far the most use.
The low power eyepiece would be used in conjunction with the finder to help locate objects in the sky and the higher power eyepieces would be used to get a closer and closer look.
Take a look at www.telescope.com this is the web site for Orion Telescopes. They sell some very good quality equipment at very reasonable prices. Their "explorer" series of eyepieces are perfecrt for starters. Get at least the 25mm and the 13mm eyepieces which, if you want to keep using the 9mm Huygens will give you a good range of magnifications.
Read the "learning" Section of the web site to find out how to use the Barlow lens and you should be set.
Good Luck !

Adolph

Answer 4

It may be because you are using a too higher power eyepiece for a start. You need more eyepieces with a lower mangification and do not use the barlow lens. The higher the number the lower the power and a 9 mm eyepiece is too high to start with for the planets as if the seeing conditions are not too good you are magnifying the conditions as well as the object. Planets should show a circular shape.
Try it out with Jupiter instead of Mars for a starter - it is the brightest object in the evening sky after the moon and is high in the sky. If you get the object sharp look for the four largest moons of Jupiter, They will look like 4 star like objects in the vicinity of the planet. There may be 1 on one side and three on the other or they may allo not be visible. They will change their position from night to night.
It is just a case of getting familiar with the telescope and eyepieces .

Answer 5

In a small telescope, even the planets will not look large. But if you have one in your sights and the scope is focussed, you'll know because it shows a tiny disc, rather than a point of light.

Make sure the finder scope is aligned with the main scope. Do this at daytime by finding a distant object in the scope, and carefully aligning the finder so it's centred on the object. That way, you can find stars and planets more easily, because the finder shows much more sky than the scope when you're looking for something.

Use this website to show you where the naked-eye stars and planets are and at what time. And make sure you're not expecting to see too much. December will be better for Mars in both size and rising times, but it will still be small in the scope.

http://skychart.skytonight.com/observing/skychart/

EDIT: Good advice from Suzie re the eyepiece. The 9mm eyepiece is for high power and has a VERY narrow field of view. There should be one which is 25mm or so. If not, that's surprising, but you can buy one.

Answer 6

Mars is a TOUGH target. Right now it is only showing an apparent disk of 10 arc seconds, which is 180 times smaller than the Moon. It also has VERY low contrast. In other words, it looks all washed out and bland. I suggest you try Jupiter. It is the bright star that is in the southwest at sunset. It will show a 35 arc second disk and you will easily see the 4 large Moons as well as some cloud belts on the planet. Try Mars around mid December. It will be closer to Earth then and will appear larger; about 16 arc seconds. Still small compared to Jupiter but probably big enough to show a polar ice cap.

Answer 7

The question is not stupid. You did not mention the make of the scope. My suspicion is: 1. It is so far out of collimation that it is almost trying to look sideways out through the tube. 2. The eyepiece is so poor that you cannot see through it. You may want to set it up in daylight hours and try to focus on a distant object. If you cannot, then I would try collimating the scope. There are many sources available on how to do this. If the eyepiece is cheap junk, you should probably consider throwing the scope away and starting over.