Thread: Meade ETX125
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Old 26-09-2007, 09:25 AM
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okiscopey (Mike)
Rocky Peak Observatory

okiscopey is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Kandos NSW
Posts: 536
As folks have said, it's all a matter of atmospheric 'seeing' (including the jetstream), altitude of the object you're observing, and scope cool-down time (at least 2 hours). I'm told the air is steadier in the early hours of the morning before dawn, but I haven't done enough observing to test that bit of info myself. The next thing of course is dark skies - but this is less important for the moon and planets. Supposedly one gets more detail on the planets by using colour filters, but I haven't tried this either.

If all those things are right, there's still one other factor: the more you look, the more you'll see! This is due to short-term variations in the atmosphere and training your eye-brain to get more out of what you're looking at.

What eyepieces do you have? If only the supplied 25mm, you're only working at x76. I have Vixen LV 9, 12, 25 and 40mm eyepices for my ETX125 (these are good quality 50 degree AFOV (apparent field of view) but not the wide-field 65 degree LVW type). However I don't get much more detail out of the 9mm (x211) compared with the 12mm most of the time. You don't need super-quality eyepieces in the ETX as it's an f/15 system and isn't as demanding as your average dob (around f/5).
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