[StuM (Stu)]

Hi All,



Please forgive me if I'm overstepping the guidelines here, but I'm a complete No0b at both astronomy forums, and astronomy in general, having just bought my 12yo son his first decent telescope - a Celestron Goto Sky Prodigy 130 (Aperture: 130 mm. Focal Length: 650mm. Focal Ratio: f/5). Being a novice myself and not knowing much, I researched quite a lot re; focal lengths etc before the $1000 purchase, and decided this one would be more than enough to get really great views of (say) Saturn/rings and Jupiter bands etc, and a few distant nebulae. I also bought the Celestron lens kit that comes with 6, 8, 13, 17, 25 and 32mm lenses and colour filters.



Anyway, so far, all I can manage is a sensational close up view of the moon. Anything else seems to escape us. Am I doing something wrong, or is this rather costly goto telescope literally not quite substantial enough in the optics department to do what I'd hoped to with it? Do I need to upgrade to a 2" lens for it perhaps, as these little 1" lenses don't seem to do much? Or do I literally have expectations of (say) a 10-inch / 1200mm Dobsonian, and should buy one of those instead? So far, viewing of (say) the nearest nebulae/s just seem to be a barely visible spray of very tiny, faintly twinkly stars. Certainly when we look at Mars, it's just a tiny microdot star, faintly twinkling, certainly not viewable as a planet beyond that like the moon is.



Am I doing something wrong/silly, or is this the max this little system can manage? Should I just buy maybe a 10 inch Dob? I live in North Brisbane on the bayside, and light pollution seems not so bad I guess, with a few nice, dark places around us.



Thank you,

Stu