|
I haven't had a chance to play with the new eyepieces yet, but you raised an interesting point about the aperture size. Am I being a bit optimistic for
planetary viewing at 150mm? I know it's only F5: so not enormously fast .
Telescopes for planetary and lunar viewing and imaging work better at longer focal lengths, your scope will still give an ok image but as the planets are relatively bright objects, astronomically speaking, you don't need a fast system. Most scopes used for the planets start at F8 and up, the images that you see on here and other websites of close ups are more often taken at F15 /20 or even longer, as cameras for planetary captures are quite low light sensitive.
The 150m aperture is sufficient , though bigger is better but at F5 you will need to barlow at X3 to X5 to reach a suitable focal length. This then puts more emphasis on how well your scope is collimated and tracking. Have included an image that I took a few years ago with an 150mm F8 newt and 2.5 Powermate, so increasing the F ratio to 20, was very good seeing that night, which is a governing factor when imaging the planets as all too often the "seeing" is crap ( technical term).
Good to hear that your scopes collimation seems good atm and will leave it alone for now , use and enjoy.
|