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telescope 101

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 11:04:09 2020 No.12365649 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>12365738 >>12366939 >>12367160

hello guys i just bought my first telescope a 130mm meade lightbridge mini dob anyone here owns any telescopes ? any tips and info i should know now that i have one

what planetary eyepiece should i buy a 5mm one or a 4mm eyepiece , or should i just buy a barlow lens and pair it with the 9mm eyepiece that comes with the telescope

any tips for identifying which stars i am looking at and how to localize planets

i live in a big city with bortle class 7 light pollution

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 11:53:51 No.12365738 Report

Quoted By:

>>12365649
You should buy a 20mm, 15mm, 10mm and maybe even a 5mm eyepiece if u want, because at 5mm you have to have a pretty good setup.

You can use some sort of app on your phone also to identify what planets and stars you're looking at.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 20:03:24 No.12366939 Report

Quoted By: >>12367531 >>12369665

>>12365649
>i live in a big city with bortle class 7 light pollution
ouch, you might want to sell that telescope and get a microscope instead. I mean the fuck you gonna do with a telescope in a heavily light polluted city? Spy on your neighbour?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 21:11:41 No.12367160 Report

Quoted By: >>12367204 >>12370176

>>12365649
So the first thing is, the focal ratio of your telescope is the most important thing to know when buying eyepieces. Your scope has a focal ratio of 5, meaning that a 5mm eyepiece is the smallest you would really want to go. A 4mm eyepiece is going to be blurry as shit in your scope.

That being said, newcomers to backyard astronomy ALWAYS make the mistake of thinking smaller eyepiece = better views. I have quality after market eyepieces in the 20mm, 14mm, 10mm, and 6mm; sizes. And honestly I find the 14mm gives me better views than the 10 and 6mm eyepieces because it has a wider field of view and it just captures more detail (even if it's "smaller" in apparent size). The point is, smaller eye pieces are not necessarily better. Ultimately, I would say that 20mm, 15mm, and 10mm, with a wide FOV and good eye relief, are what most people use 99% of the time unless you are willing to shill out for a $400 extremely high quality 5mm that's really more for astro-photography than actual observation. Barlowe's are a neat addition to your gear but keep in mind that they degrade the image quality slightly. Putting a 10mm eye piece in a barlowe will never look as good as a quality 5mm eye piece.

>planetary eyepiece
As I said above, I find I mostly use my 14mm wide view and 10mm eye pieces for planets. My 6mm is blurry as fuck with most planets and I tend to use it more for looking at really faint deep sky objects.

>eyepiece that comes with the telescope
Eye pieces that come with scopes are almost always trash. Replace them with better quality (whatever you can afford will always be better than the eye pieces that shipped with the scope) eye pieces as soon as possible.

TBC

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 21:21:53 No.12367204 Report

Quoted By: >>12367241 >>12370176

>>12367160
Get a star gazing guide with star charts and info. A star planar (it's like a plastic circle star chart that you move to the correct date/time to see what your night sky should look like) can be helpful too. Get a low-intensity red flashlight to look at the charts with. Regular flashlights kill your night vision and make it really hard to see anything. Make an effort to learn the constellations, major stars, etc. It's actually really fun after a few years because you can always tell what time of year it is by what constellations and stars you can see, directions, etc. I can actually find my way by night a lot easier than by day.

> how to localize planets
The bigger planets are easy as fuck to recognize. For one thing, planets are nearly always brighter than the stars by a huge margin. The only star that even comes close to planet levels of brightness is Sirius. So generally any "star" that is noticeable much much brighter than the other stars is probably a planet. Venus is the brightest and it's almost impossible to mistake it for anything else once you've seen it because it's so much brighter than anything besides the Moon. Usually it's around dawn or dusk (like Mercury). Mars is harder, it's more comparable to a star in brightness but still brighter. What gives it away is that Mars is a deep red, even more red than a red giant star like Betelgeuse. So if you see a really bright red star it's probably Mars. Jupiter is almost as bright as Venus and it stays in one constellation each year, so every night when it's home constellation is visible you can see it shining brightly in the same place. Saturn is less bright but still brighter than a star. Saturn spends two years in each constellation. Uranus and Neptune are probably beyond your scope unless you get lucky or it's dark as fuck. Mercury is usually only visible like within 30 minutes of dusk or dawn and there won't be any visible stars when it's out.

TBC

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 21:31:12 No.12367241 Report

Quoted By: >>12369510 >>12370176 >>12370934

>>12367204
All the planets travel along the Ecliptic (along with the Moon) which is basically a line in the sky that is really the plane of the solar system. The ecliptic doesn't really change, so if you see a really bright fucking star on the ecliptic there is a decent chance it's a planet. The other give away is that planets don't twinkle like stars (which is basically atmospheric light scattering if you are interested). Anyways, you'll figure out planets pretty quick, they look very different from stars.

A lot of people swear by star gazing phone apps but personally I never liked them because they kill your night vision.

>class 7 light pollution
You aren't going to see shit except maybe Venus and Jupiter in your city. I recommending finding a local dark sky park or just somewhere relatively close that has decently dark skies and making the trip when you can. It's nice to be able to do astronomy every night but if you are dealing with that kind of light pollution you really aren't going to see much.

Just as a last parting word, you should definitely look at the moon and some of the brighter deep sky objects if you get the chance. Planets are cool and all, but finding a nebula or galaxy in that great void and realizing what your looking at is a feeling I can't describe, its fucking magical. My fondest memories of star gazing are searching for some deep sky object for hours before finally stumbling upon it. Also don't expect Hubble space telescope views. You will never see that good of views from a ground based telescope, even planets will be still be mostly just shining orbs in a telescope, and nebula/galaxies will just be faint blue light clouds. The fun in backyard astronomy is mostly in confirming with your own eyes what you've read and seen pictures of elsewhere, even if those pictures are better than the "live" view.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 22:48:42 No.12367531 Report

Quoted By: >>12367534

>>12366939
OP can look at the Moon, but probably won’t be able to see any stars or the like

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 20 Nov 2020 22:49:32 No.12367534 Report

Quoted By:

>>12367531
yes, moon and the brighter planets.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 21 Nov 2020 10:50:52 No.12369510 Report

Quoted By:

>>12367241
Champ. Thread saved.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 21 Nov 2020 12:08:45 No.12369665 Report

Quoted By:

>>12366939
I live in a city with class 9 light pollution, still can see jupiter, saturn and mars although mars usually sucks can't get any details. All that with a cheap telescope.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 21 Nov 2020 16:12:33 No.12370176 Report

Quoted By:

>>12367160
>>12367204
>>12367241

thanks a lot for the info also do you have any tips on the finderscope i used it tomorrow and it was shit the red dot was on the moon but when i looked at the telescope it wasn't there i had to move it manually while looking at the eyepiece to find the moon

and it was amazing i could see the craters but it was just for a couple of seconds because the fucking clouds were obstructing my view constantly and the moon was hiding behind a tall building and i couldn't keep watching

i guess things will improve when i learn how to use this telescope better

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 21 Nov 2020 19:43:46 No.12370934 Report

Quoted By:

>>12367241
>ou aren't going to see shit except maybe Venus and Jupiter in your city
I have seen mars and saturn in multiple cities, they're bright as shit

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