I just dont know......

[ianB]

Had an opportunity to use my scope this evening, I only used if from my balcony as my right leg is giving me pain and im tired, hence quick look.
Now the question is am I expecting too much? If you read on please tell me.

So from my balcony, about 200 mtrs from the beach with an on shore breeze I set up my Nexstar 6SE and had a look at Jupiter ( only had my scope for 2 months and this is my 3rd viewing, been cloud cover for weeks ) the sky only had a few clouds here and there and accordingnto SkippySky.com seeing conditions were 7 and Transparency was 5 to 6.
According to the Pickering scale http://www.damianpeach.com/pickering.htm
I would estimate that seeing was 5 to 6.
My collimation looks good to me.

With my 25mm I saw Jupiter as a nice clear disk and saw the two main bands which looked a light brownish to pink colour, the moons looked like stars flickering and not sharp pin points.

With my X-Cel LX 9mm I could not see any more detail than than the 25mm and Jupiter appeared somewhat blurry, fuzzy, not a sharp image at all.

I experienced the results with my other EP's 20mm 6mm and barlow X2

The Moon looked good in my 25mm 20mm and 9mm LX

Now I appreciate that the higher you go in mag the dimmer the view, but is it normal to have these fuzzy views? Or should you expect the image of Jupiter to be crisp in the 9mm LX?

I must say overall I am unhappy about this as the EP's are expensive and I really thought that I would get a crisp image with the celestron X Cel LX.

So can you please tell me is this normal ? If not what could be the problem?

With better viewing conditions will jupiter ( and mars etc ) still be somewhat blurry?

Any comments will be a help.

Thanks,

ian

[brian nordstrom]

:) Hi Ian , the 9mm will give about 170x in your C6 ? or there abouts , that's getting into the higher magnifications in any scope .

You say 'From my balcony ' , is it a roofed one ? , if so the heat from the house will be escaping out under it disturbing the seeing a lot and the scales you quote here wont mean a thing , sorry to say .:sadeyes: ..

If you wait a long time with the doors shut and curtins pulled the seeing will settle or get out under the night sky .

Your C6 should handle 200x on a good night , great scopes and I don't think its the 9mm at fault here , but the environment you are viewing from .

Brian.

[Wavytone]

Ian,

200 metres from a beach isn't likely to be much good for observing - I've tried when my mum had a house right behind Avalon beach, and the seeing was consistently awful. If there's a sea breeze you've got cool saturated air coming in from the water mixing with warmer dry air over the land and the turbulence - and effect on seeing - is pretty bad. Your 6" scope is big enough to show this.

You really do need to get away from the coast, and away from major sources of heat particularly buildings where hot western walls and roof will release heat for hours, creating thermals and turbulence.

There is another issue too. Salty humid air is bad for scopes, particularly the mirror coatings, and it will leave a sticky film on your optics - corrector, eyepieces etc that has to be wiped off.

[ianB]

Thanks Brian,
Yes my balcony door was open on and off and my viewing was only for an hour, starting at arround 19:15, at that time Jupiter was about 40 deg.

Also there is a three story unit across the road from me and Jupiter was just slightly off to the left from it, but as Jupiter was rather high I did not think the heat from that building would be too much of a problem, but maybe it was?

I just hope that when conditions are good and I go out to a site, my images will be clearer and not look blurry.
As I said thebmoon looked good and ilt was in a darker region away from lights and buildings, so as you say that may be the reason why mynview was not good, at least I hope so.

[ianB]

Thank you Wavytone, yes I can see that may also be an issue.

[brian nordstrom]

:thumbsup: Thanks Ian , yes as said by Wavytone and me the observing location you are using is not the best , but its sometimes all we have so have to live with it .

My advise is keep the magnifictions down to about 100x at home and if you can get out somewhere where its better , then go for the higher ones , as I say your scope is easily capable of 200x plus on a good night .

The moon is very forgiving of bad seeing , being so large it does not show that like a small planet will .

Have you joined a local astronomy club yet ? this will help you no end .:D .

Brian.

[ianB]

Sad to to the nearest club is too far away from me, there used to be one here some years back but alas no more.
When conditions are good I'll go for a drive to a good site and have a go.

Thanks tor your input, it gives me hope.
Looks like I was being too optimistic given my location . :-)

[raymo]

On top of all the factors previously mentioned, closed tube scopes like
your 6SE take a long time to equalise to the ambient temperature, and
should be put outside at least an hour before being used. The planets are
especially vulnerable to poor seeing, and your experience with them will
vary from night to night. Occasionally you will get a night when you will see all sorts of detail, and these nights are what keep you coming back
for more.
If the moons twinkled, your local conditions were clearly not the best.
They should be solid pinpricks, and at high magnification should show
some slight dimension. With higher mag not only is the image dimmer,
but is also less sharp, regardless of eyepiece quality; simple physics.
Many newbies are disappointed with their first experiences, but with
more experience your seeing ability improves, so soldier on.
raymo

[Regulus]

Ian it is very possible the tall building over the road was radiating stored heat and effecting the view. A pair of Binos focused on the building edge or on something behind it may well have shown a waviness to the atmosphere around it.
I had the same problem tonight with Jupiter but that is because it is so low from down here at 41deg South, and it is off over the ocean too with about a kilometre of houses and street releasing heat into the air.. The best view was in the Wide 25mm ep and anything stronger was a disappointment.
I know that most viewing from my verandah is going to be a bit disappointing because I am in town (small town but they have managed to bitumen it thoroughly and over illuminate). Just one of those things.
Trevor

[ianB]

Thanks all for your comments, its good to get feedback from your experience and knowledge.

[astroron]

Hi Ian, as others have said here,there are a number of factors effecting your viewing and all well explaned.
The seeing wasn't that great tonight untill about 10:30 here but even then it was just average.
Higher mag in a smaller scope will degrade the view taking in all the factors mentioned by the other guys.
Look forward to you getting better and you getting out here and giving your scope a real good workout under a dark sky.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[ianB]

Thanks Ron,
Looks like you are a late nighter like myself.

[astroron]

I have just come in as the mist has come over:mad2:
I am going to hang around for a while to see if it clears
before I go to bed.
I am hoping to catch Comet Lovejoy before it gets too faint.
Not liking my chances at the moment. :sadeyes:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[ianB]

All the best for Lovejoy, im about to turn in.
Nite.

[astroron]

Night,
Goodby to mr Lovejoy tonight,completely misted in. :mad2:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[OzStarGazer]

This has happened to me too because magnification doesn't only magnify planets/objects but also turbulences, that's why we need perfectly clear nights for perfect viewing (which are becoming very rare in NSW). Keep watching and good luck!

[Camelopardalis]

The 9mm Xcel LX is well matched to the scope and gives a generally useful magnification in the 6SE. I used to find that my 6SE cooled quickly (and I used to live in a much cooler climate than here!), so it sounds to me like the seeing was poor and/or the local thermals, as other guys have mentioned.

The 6SE was my first scope and I had great views of Jupiter, Mars and eventually Saturn with that scope and it'll show you plenty on a decent night :thumbsup:

[julianh72]

I thought it might help to reinforce the comments made by the regular forum contributors, from a complete newbie's perspective.

I'm actually a "proxy" for my Dad, who bought a Meade 8" LX-90 ACF a couple of months ago - a bit bigger than your scope, but comparable in build and performance etc. Weather in Brisbane has been pretty awful for sky viewing since he bought it, but we had our first good night last night. (Well as good as can be expected in suburban Brisbane, with glare from the City, sodium street lights, neighbour's units, etc.)

I arrived at his place at 7:30, set-up the scope, and our first target was Jupiter. It looked good in the standard Meade 26 mm eyepiece (sharp disk, clear bands, 3 moons clearly visible), but was bigger but markedly fuzzier with his higher power eyepieces. (He got a set of Orion eyepieces: http://sirius-optics.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=16_109_69&products_id=192).

We weren't sure whether it was poor technique / collimation (definitely a possibility for newbies like us!), 2nd rate eyepieces, or what, but we put the 26 mm Meade back in, and hunted down a few more targets, tinkered with attaching a camera, etc. (Off-topic, but the Bahtinov focussing mask that I cut from a sheet of cardboard worked a treat! And the Go-To mount worked beautifully, too - dial up a target, and Bingo! Right on target! Compared to our last experience with a manual 4 1/2" Newtonian scope many years ago, this almost seems like cheating!)

At about 10:30, I was just about to pack up for the night, and we finished by going back to Jupiter. (The main aim was to see just how good the Go-To alignment worked after a few hours of scanning around the heavens. It was perfect - dead centre!) Even though Jupiter was by now significantly lower in the sky, and had moved further into the light haze from the CBD, it was noticeably sharper than before. We popped the Orion 10 mm and 7.5 mm eyepieces in, and the higher magnification image was MUCH sharper than before.

I can only assume that the main differentiator was that the scope had reached thermal equilibrium and was therefore performing better; and I guess the whole atmosphere is typically more stable a bit later at night, because if anything, the light haze and height in the sky were worse for the second viewing than the first. (I'm sure that this not news for the regular star-gazers, but it was stunningly apparent to this pair of newbies!)

Our learning is that we will set up the scope outside as early as possible in future, and try to plan our night's viewing such that we will try to choose the ones of greatest interest for later in the session. (Although of course, if they're visible early, and it looks like there may be a chance of clouding over, we'll probably still start with them, and have a second go later, if the opportunity still remains!)

[ianB]

Thanks to everyone.
and it was interesting to hear your comments Julian as I am just up the rd from you, so to speak.

[Astro_Bot]

Seeing in Brisbane was quite good last night, at least out near the bay. Between about 10pm and 2am, it was very good, though not perfect - there seemed to be at least one semi-turbulent layer up there, as seeing would go from good to very good and back again every few minutes in different parts of the sky and there were some clouds doing their wispy appearing/disappearing act from time to time. Another supporting sign was the dew and the "relative" cold - not especially humid by the forecast, but a lot of dew and I was rugged up - that sky felt cold and my 'scope was plenty cold by midnight.

The views were enjoyable and I got some good snaps of Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. I will see if I can extract any decent details from the images ...

I agree that 'scope cool down time is vital. Even though I've been doing visual astronomy for a while now, and thought that 2 hours of cool down was plenty, I've recently found (I think) that the for good photography, even longer cool down times improve performance. In fact, the longer/colder the better.

[ianB]

Astro bot, you are also not that far from me, I guess around 100k give or take, when you take the scope out to cool down should I put the dew shield on straight away or leave it off until an hour or so later when I actually use the scope ?
and is it best to have it pointed downwards during this time? ( the reason i ask that is because i read somewhere that this will help in getting rid of dew )
And from your experience have ever needed to use a dew heater in this region of the South East? ( i am in the Caloundra area )

[batema]

Hi Ian. I attended a few of those atronomy club meetings at the frog farm near Beerwah years ago and yes a shame it folded. Thank you insurance premiums. There are a few places that you could go a short inland drive from the coast. I know that Ron has open nights that he post on I think the star parties forum. Beautiful area and dark. There is also 10 chain hill but I have not been there as of yet. Also ASTROFEST at camp DUCKADANG near linville in July I think this year.

Mark

[ianB]

Thanks Mark, and yes what a shame about that club, maybe it will restart again one day?
and I will indeed try to go up to Ron's when he has another get together.

[Astro_Bot]

Hi Ian,

I leave the corrector cover on during cool down, but that's mostly because I put it on a table in the backyard. When it's on the mount, I put the dew shield on straight away - I don't have the option of pointing down since the park position of my NEQ6 is pointing up at the SCP.

I don't have dew heaters. There was one occasion last year when, at a star party under very dewey conditions, I was "dewed out" - still, mine was the "last scope standing" so I lasted pretty well. I bought a 12V/10A hairdryer (it was only about $30) but haven't had to use it yet, although I think I came close last night.

100km away could have quite different seeing conditions, depending on the cause. If you're, say, close to an escarpment, then a breeze could rise sharply, cool and change direction causing additional turbulence. Also, heat islands, like a city centre, could affect seeing.

[ianB]

Thanks Astro, conitions are not great tonight but i will have a try at Mars in the early morning 3:30 ish, I have never seen it and conditions may be better at that time early am, as long as there is no great cloud cover.

Ian

[ianB]

It seems my scope needs to be collimated, I had a look at jupiter again this evening and once again the moons were not sharp and had a, for want of a better word, spike off to the left, and with jupiter it was clearer, more sharp on the right but fuzzy on the left.

So i tested the collimation on thee scope with a 6mm on a star and sure enough the black disc was off to one side.

So i had a go at doing the collimation........................ ............two hours later i gave up! :-)

Doing it in the dark is not easy and everytime i put a slight turn on the screw the star went out of the f.o.v

I will try and get a collimation kit as soon as i can and try it that way, from what i have seen it is easier to do it with this kit inside rather than try by myself in the dark with the star going out of view everytime i turn the screws.

Anyway when it gets done im sure my views of jupiter will improve.

ian

[ianB]

P.S

Any suggestion on what one to get, there seem to be several types.

[Astro_Bot]

You don't need a collimation kit for an SCT. There's only one adjustment - the secondary - and all it takes is practice. At some point, it will "click".

When adjusting each screw work in small increments - one eighth of a turn is a lot!

A tip for young players is to use a stick, ruler, rod or even an empty/finished cardboard roll (for paper or foil). Hold it front of the scope so it covers centre to outside edge (with the diffraction rings showing) and you will see a shadow. This will help you orient the collimation screws to the pattern and help you pick which ones to adjust.

The first time I collimated, it took me a couple of hours - being very careful and learning as I went. Now I can do it in 5 minutes even using a real star. Having said that, I rarely need to adjust as SCTs hold collimation quite well.

[ianB]

Yes, i will go outside and give that a go now.

[ianB]

O.K so i had another go using the ruler as suggested, and yes it did make it easier for me and i think the collimation is good now, the moons of jupiter now looked like pin points without distortion ( as previously ) but as jupiter was now very low I could not get a real look at it, too much haze/cloud to look through as it was just after 1am.

Mars was very high and I took my first ever look at it with my 25mm and 9mm, conditions were i think reasonable, anyway it was interesting to see, i could just about make out some faint shadow but did not see any polar cap, but it was fun to see being my first time.

I might add my telescope had been inside for an hour or so and i took it out to do the collimation and took a quick look at mars while outside, so i doubt the scope had cooled down and I was on my balcony with the door open.

As Saturn was near Mars I thought i would have a peek, the last time I saw saturn through a scope was back in 1986, and then it was just with my 20 X 50 spotting scope.

With my 25mm at x 60 Saturn was beautiful to see, its been such a long time and i was not at all disappointed, even more beautiful than what i remembered.
I then put in the 9mm which gave me X 166, while the image was not as sharp as the 25mm it was still a lovely sight, especially considering the situation with the scope having just been taken outside about 20 minutes before.

Then the image in both the 9 and 25mm became foggy which I think may have been due to the humidity? ( i did not have the dew shield on as i was doing the collimation ) moments before the views were so much better, but i did not mind as it was getting late and i was making noise on the balcony and did not want to wake my my neighbours.

So while things started off badly they turned out much better.

ian


( looking forward to seeing saturn again, i even got my wife out to have a quick look, she loved seeing it )

[Astro_Bot]

Great to hear, Ian! :thumbsup:

Regarding foggy: given the lenth of time you'd been out, more likely you breathed on the eyepiece, or that it was moisture from your eye caught within the rubber eyecup causing the same effect. Both of these things happen to me from time to time. If you shine a light on your corrector, you'll see if it's dew - it looks exactly like a misted up car windscreen.

[Camelopardalis]

Glad to hear you've jumped that hurdle, Ian :thumbsup:

If you're craft oriented, a Duncan Mask, like illustrated on this chap's site might be worth a go ... http://alpha-lyrae.co.uk/2013/12/31/schmitt-cassegrain-collimation-made-easy-using-a-duncan-mask/

As luck would have it, my scope appears to hold collimate on pretty well so I haven't had reason to tinker, but once I find a circular cutter I might :D

[ianB]

Thanks for the link Dunk.

ian

[ianB]

Things are looking up, no pun inteended.
As i need to be up early tomorrow i thought i would spend a couple hours on the balcony.
As suggested i had the balcony door closed all the time and 2 hours before going out, also cooled scope for 1 1/2 hours.
Again as suggested i checked SkippySky earlier today and conditions looked reasonable.

Anyway unlike the last few evenings the moon looked great in both my 9 and 6mm, lovely views and so much detail, im very happy as i really thought that at X 250 the moon would be a blurr, but not at all, great detail.

Jupiter was much better in my 9mm than previously, only had brief looks due to clouds all over the place, and it was less blurry and i saw a little more detail, ie the bands were not just straight bands but showed a little shape.

I just came in to have dinner but will be out soon for another hour, may even try mars if the clouds move on.

Ian

P.S
thanks all for your suggestions which have been of assistance.

[Camelopardalis]

Great! Sounds like you're on the right track Ian :thumbsup: