Is it me, the moon or my scope?

[BilliGoatsGruff]

So I finally had a chance to take my new telscope out this morning (SkyWatcher Heritage 130p) while the kids and hubby were sleeping. It didn't take me long to line it up with a star, but what I saw in the eye piece wasn't what I expected. There was a white circle, which I'm guessing was just the whole primary mirror reflecting light, with a shadow from the secondary mirror. I tried three different stars to make sure it wasn't light coming from somewhere else and each time it did the same thing.

So this leaves me to wonder, is it me, the moon or my scope?

I should also add that the moon was on the other side of y house, so I didn't cop a lot of light from it.

[CapturingTheNight]

I would expect to see what you described if the scope is out of focus. Did you try and adjust the focus to see if the stars changed?

[CapturingTheNight]

Just did a little Google search on your scope as I personally have not used one. This youtube review might be of help. Things to check are that you had the collapsible component fully extended and your focus as mentioned before. It looks like you focus by rotating the eyepiece holder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q00hq_p_5rw

[BilliGoatsGruff]

Hi Greg :)

I did have a fiddle with the focus, but that just made the circle blur a bit. I might try again tonight to make sure that the scope was fully extended. I think it was, but that's no sure-fire guarantee :shrug:

[CJ]

Don't forget to turn the red dot finder off! :thumbsup:

[BilliGoatsGruff]

Haha I do that anyway to stop the battery going flat :D

[Allan_L]

Sounds like a focus issue, as already suggested.
If turning focus one way makes it blurry, turn it the other way until you see the image getting smaller, then you are heading the right way and keep going until it is clear.

Also, make sure you start with the 25mm eyepiece, being lower magnification, it should be easier to get to focus.

Then once centred you can switch to the higher magnification 10mm, if you want, for more detail.
This will then require re-focus.

Good luck with it and happy viewing

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I have tried turning the focus wheel both ways and it didn't really help. Of course I can't try it again until dark. I'm not game enough to use the 10mm until I've got this telescope thing down to a tee.

[inertia8]

Can you focus on a distant tree and have you aligned the red dot finder to the scope yet?

Be careful not to unscrew the focuser all the way out or you might drop it and the eyepiece. I've come close on mine. Start by screwing it most of the way in then you'll know you only need to slowly unscrew to focus. As has been said when the airy disc of the star begins to shrink you are headed in the right direction, go slowly so as bot to miss when the image comes to focus.

Some of these did have an issue whereby the stud/bolt that holds the secondary mirror in place was not long enough to place the secondary in the center of the tube. I've measured mine from the edge of the mirror holder (black thing with screws in it) along the stud and to the edge of the tube assembly and it is approx 63.5mm. If you check it be careful to do this in a horizontal position so as to avoid dropping anything down into the tube.

This issue was with a batch of scopes from quite some time ago and so I would think that most modern stock would not have this issue. If it does I'm sure the retailer will replace it, worse case a new stud could be sourced.

Please post some pictures of the scope setup if you can and remember to keep fingers away from that shiny exposed secondary mirror!

[mental4astro]

Hi Billi,

Might seem like a funny question, but have the struts been extended all the way? The helical focuser of these scopes has a very short travel distance, and the correct relocation of the struts is critical. This would be my first place to look for problem solving.

What it is not is extraneous light coming from the surroundings. You would not be seeing the doughnut shape you described if it were.

The secondary placement inertia describes won't affect focusing. It will have an affect on the efficiency of the maximum amount of light getting into the eyepiece. The scope will still come to focus even with the secondary mirror out of optimal position. Having the secondary best placed you can examine once we get you focusing your scope.

Allan asked if the image you see gets smaller or bigger as you rotate the focuser. If it doesn't, check that you've tightened the set screw that secures the eyepiece in the focuser. Sometimes it is easy to forget to tighten it then when we twist the eyepiece to focus (instead of the drawtube), nothing happens with focus, and we are left wondering what's happening, :confused2: . This happened to me lastnight with one scope of mine that also has a helical focuser!!! :doh:

Keep us informed with progress.

Mental.

[inertia8]

^ Thanks Astro, I wasn't certain of the affect the secondary out of place would have and a great tip about the grub screw, I've had that very issue myself as I often turn the focuser with the eyepiece grip rather than the nut section of the focuser.

Here's a link to the thread on that issue by the way, so you that you can discount it as being an issue with your scope.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/194109-skywatcher-heritage-130p-secondary-mirror-mount-help/

[julianh72]

It's often a good idea to have your first play with a new telescope in daylight hours, because it's so much easier to see how everything works, and the image is nice and bright so you can make out some sort of image even if it is wildly out of focus.

Put in the lowest power (longest focal length) eyepiece, and point it at a distant building or tree (NEVER at the Sun, unless you have the appropriate full-aperture solar filter!!!), and see if you can reach focus. See how the focus changes as you wind the focuser in and out a bit.

Now change to a higher power (shorter focal length) eyepiece, and see if it holds focus when you swap them around, or whether you need to re-focus a little (or a lot!) between eyepieces.

Once you have done some daytime familiarisation, leave it focussed on the distant tree or building with your lowest power eyepiece installed, so that when you take it out at night, you should be able to see something straight away.

If you're still having trouble seeing stars, try pointing it at the Moon - it's bright enough that you'll be sure to find it, regardless of how badly focussed the telescope is, and then once you've focussed on the Moon, you should have no trouble seeing stars or planets. Now swap out to a higher magnification eyepiece, and see how much re-focussing is required, and also notice that the image may be noticeably dimmer and less stable / sharp.

Hope this helps - good luck!

[OzStarGazer]

The image will be upside down if you look at a tree in daylight for example, but it doesn't matter in terms of focussing of course.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I'm definitely used to the upside down images :) hopefully I'll get a chance to go outdide soon and see if I can work out what I'm doing wrong.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

Soo it turns out I had the 10mm eyepiece in, instead of the 25mm. I'm feeling pretty stupid because I honestly don't remember swapping them over! :ashamed: At least the mystery is solved though.

Thanks everyone for helping me out!
:thanx:

[AstralTraveller]

No jokes. We've all done sillier things than that - trust me!

So, are you saying you can get the 25mm to focus but not the 10mm?

[BilliGoatsGruff]

So far, yes. It's totally overcast so I probably won't be able to have another try tonight. The 10mm seems to be really out of focus.

[OzStarGazer]

The 10mm eyepiece that comes with the SW is not very good... I hardly ever use it. I have a 6mm and an 8mm good eyepieces and they both work better than the SW 10mm eyepiece with the SW Heritage 130p. I was thinking of buying a better 10mm eyepiece myself.
PS: I also have a Celestron 10mm eyepiece that came with a Celestron telescope and it is not very good either. For high magnifications it is just better to buy a good eyepiece rather than the default ones. The FOV is also extremely limited in both the SW and the Celestron 10mm eyepieces.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

What brand would you recommend for eyepieces? Celestron?

[BeanerSA]

If you're on a budget, I'd just get a Bintel/GSO Plossl. If you have an account with OzScopes already, just get a SkyWatcher Super Plossl.

[OzStarGazer]

I bought the 8mm one from the UK. It is a Starguider ED. And I bought the 6mm on Aliexpress. It is a TMB II. TMB is cheaper than the Starguider. They are also cheap on eBay, but postage was free from China.
Of course now that the AUD has fallen everything is a bit more expensive... :(
For high magnifications you also need really clear nights with no turbulences, which unfortunately have become very rare here!

[BilliGoatsGruff]

So you think the 10mm Super Plossl? I haven't had a chance to use my scope because of yucky weather and then this whole mix up so I'm not too worried about a new eyepiece yet. It would be good for future reference though. Maybe I'll shout myself a birthday present :D

[inertia8]

Do you wear eyeglasses in general and/or when using the scope?

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I have to wear glasses all the time.. That made it even worse with the 10mm. At least the 25mm has heaps of eye relief. I'm guessing that would determine what eyepieces to get?

[inertia8]

That's correct, I suffer astigmatism and find it easier to keep my glasses on all the time and through trialing different eyepieces have found 15mm eye relief to be the absolute minimum for me.

Remember that you will need to get 1.25" eyepieces and advice for this little scope is to keep them under 250g.

I began with a Bintel/GSO superview 15mm for $49, which is good for the price (aFoV is 68deg and ER is 15mm). To get it to come to focus in the little 130p I have to loosen the strut tubes and retract them by about 1cm or so.

The BST Starguider/Explorer (also sold under Astrotech Paradigm and Agena Dual ED) range, as suggested above, has a pretty good eye relief and gets reasonably favourable reviews. The 8mm one has 60deg apparent field of view (aFoV) and 16.5mm eye relief (ER) and might be a suitable replacement for your 10mm.

Good Luck

[Sato]

Hiya. I've had the SW 130P Heritage for 6 months now. The 25 & 10 eps work just fine for me...ok, maybe not the greatest but I've seen the bands of Jupiter from inner Sydney so they can't be that bad?

[BilliGoatsGruff]

Ive only had mine for a week, so I still have a lot to figure out :)

[BilliGoatsGruff]

My daughter has astigmatism so I understand completely where you're coming from :) My left eye is lazy and it turns out slightly so the 10mm is almost useless as it's so hard for me to focus. I have to cover my left eye (my right eye is dominant so it is pretty much impossible for me to use my left) or all I end up seeing is a fuzzy mix of the ground and the sky haha.
I think I'll just stick to the 25mm wide relief until I can get a new eyepiece.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

Would it be worth getting a barlow to go with the 25mm or should I just get another eyepiece?

[Sato]

Oh sure, but look at my post count...I'm still crawling :).

My point was simply not to race out & throw money at eps until you're sure it will help :thumbsup:.

[inertia8]

I can use the 10mm if I take my eyeglasses off and am careful not to hit the lense with my lashes, give that a go first?

[AstralTraveller]

If you are only long sighted or short sighted you shouldn't need to use glasses. You can compensate with the focusser. That's what my wife does. If you have astigmatism you may need to use glasses. Generally the larger the scope's exit pupil the more effect the astigmatism will have.

Exit pupil is the size of the beam of light coming out of the ep. It is can be calculated as either Exit pupil = aperture of scope / magnification OR Exit pupil = focal length of eyepiece / focal ratio of the scope. Focal ratio = focal length of scope / aperture. Don't do calculations in inches. Measure everything in mm.

The problem you are having is nothing to do with the quality of the ep. It's true that the cheapest upgrade you can do now is better eps but wait for a fair while before you do. My recommendation is to make a plan (remembering that one day you -will- get a bigger scope!) for your whole collection and then buy eps as the budget allows. Otherwise you risk winding up with an ep box that looks like the proverbial committee's camel.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I did try taking my glasses off and I think it made the image fuzz out a bit.

Weather conditions have been terrible which means I haven't had a chance to test it all out again. Fingers crossed we will get clear skies tonight!

[OzStarGazer]

Focus is different with or without glasses, as well as with different people so you will just have to refocus after taking them off.
I hope the weather will improve where you are. It just did here. Hopefully it will last.

[OzStarGazer]

In general people seem to think that it is better to have more eyepieces than using a Barlow. I find the Barlow to work OK (and I have a cheap one), for a beginner at least (although I agree that more eyepieces would be better).
PS: I have only used the Barlow for the moon.
PPS: The "long" 3x Barlow won't work well with our scope. I made the mistake of buying one and then had to buy a short one (incredibly cheap, but it still does an OK job on clear nights). (Luckily I also have another scope I can use the long one with.)

[Nikolas]

If you have focus lock screws, make sure they are loose enough to allow focus travel, sometimes you can turn the focusing knobs and the barrel doesn't move so nothing happens. Iv'e been caught out once or twice like that in the past.

[AstralTraveller]

I don't think this is relevant on a helical focusser, but check anyway.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

So I finally scored a break in the seemingly endless clouds today and got to try my scope again. This time I made sure the 25mm was fitted instead of the 10mm (haha silly me) and I made sure that it was fully extended. It was just on dawn, which meant no stars, but I got the most glorious view of the moon! I really wasn't expecting it to be so crystal clear.

However, after a bit of ogling I decided to pop in the 10mm for a squizz. What are those things supposed to be used for? The moon went as fuzzy as the clouds that were drifting around and no matter how much I tried to focus, it didn't get any better!

[OzStarGazer]

If there is an astronomy club near you maybe you could join so you can have a look with somebody else? The SW is easy to carry, so you could go to a meeting with your scope.
I don't know, I am not happy with the 10mm eyepiece, as I said before, but I can still focus, so I am not sure why you can't. It is also possible that even if you didn't notice any turbulences with the 25mm eyepiece you noticed them with the 10mm eyepiece, so the lack of focus were the turbulences. Turbulences are also present when the sky is clear. Sometimes I look at the moon in the afternoon (no clouds) and the moon literally floats in front of my eyes!

[barx1963]

When I still used my old 130mm scope, I almost never used the 10mm EP that came with it. I still have it in my kit, occasionally pop it in a scope to remind myself how hard to use these things are!
They are designed to be used for higher power, but applying the principle of TANSTASFL ("there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" for anyone not familiar with the works of Robert Heinlein), everything has a cost, and the price of higher magnification is a much tighter focus point, increasing visibility of poor seeing (atmospheric distortion) and tighter eye relief.

It is probably nothing wrong with the scope or eyepiece, simply a consequence of the laws of optics! So relax, use the 25mm and enjoy the views.

Malcolm

[CJ]

I used the 10mm in my Heritage with reasonable results. Is it by any chance dirty? If your kids got hold of it, and they are anything like my kids were, there's a good chance its got cake, jam, butter, snot etc etc on it! :D

[inertia8]

That 10mm is very difficult to use with glasses on, even with the rubber eyecup folded down I need to hold my glasses lense and squish it close to my eye to take in the full field of view. I find it more comfortable to get it close to focus and then take my glasses off and refocus a smidge.

I would suggest focusing on a distant tree (200m-300m away) with the 25mm and then switching to the 10mm and try to focus. I just tried it then and the point at which the 10mm focused when looking at the number of peaks or ridges of the helical focuser's "screw thread" was 4 visible (not including the half sized ridge closest to the "nut" moulding) and the 5th peak was present right at the lip of the focuser housing.

I'm sure it's been said, however, make sure that the sun is behind your back, preferably tucked away behind clouds or a tree or the wall of your house!

[BilliGoatsGruff]

Ozstar- there is an astronomy group for our region :) I've bern meaning to get in touch with them, but it seems that life keeps getting in the way. there may have been turbulence. We had a lot of wind and fast moving low cloud so anything is possible.

Malcolm- I'm not overly worried about using the 10mm. I've barely used my scope as it is and I definitely have a lot to look at with the 25mm. I just thought I would try it out to see if I could focus on anything but it's still giving me the pips. It's not essential thought, the 25mm lets me see more than I ever dreamed of.

Chris- it doesn't look dirty, so far the sticky jam fingers have stayed away :lol:

Inertia- I take my glasses off when I'm using my scope. Now that I've worked out how to use the focusing wheel properly the quality of the images don't suffer. If I cover my left eye and look with my right I don't get any eye strain. When the weather calms down I'll head outside and have a look to see where the focuser is sitting.

Overall the 10mm isn't a necessity for me. Chances are it may never get used anyway.

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I finally got the 10mm to focus. It works a treat on planets. I do think that you lose some image quality with the stars though.

[barx1963]

Well done Billi
What did you end up doing to get focus?

Malcolm

[BilliGoatsGruff]

I'm not sure if I had it zoomed in too far, but after wiggling the focus wheel a bit I managed to get it to focus. If the skies are clear tomorrow I'll try the moon again. It's very exciting :)