Quote:
Originally Posted by barx1963
John
The scope came with a 10mm and a 25mm eyepiece which would give you 65x and 26x respectively. As I said earlier the magnification limit is a theoretical 250x, but on most nights getting 20x per inch of aperture would be pretty good which is roughly 100x in your scope. To get that you would need an eyepiece of 6.5mm focal length.
The thing to remember is that dim objects quote often do not take magnification well, it spreads out the avaialble light and makes them dimmer. In theory more power can also increase the contrast by making the background darker but that rarely outweighs the dimming power of trying to magnify too much.
At the stage that you are at I would concentrate on using the eyepieces you have on the moon and planets. There is a lot of interesting detail to be seen at low power. On the moon there are plenty of caters of various types to check out, rays from newer craters, and if you get a run of clear weather you can track the terminator (the edge of the shadow, not Arnie!  ) as it moves across the surface from night to night. Jupiter is getting really low ATM but you should still be able to pick out the moons and note how the change posotion even on an hourly basis.
Mars if probably not going to be much more than a reddish disk. With luck on a good night you may be able to catch a hint of the North Polar Ice Cap. Saturns rings are really nice. A good project would be start to try for some of the Messier objects also. Most of them would be accessible with your scope, though some of the Galaxies will be hard catches.
I would leave the barlow alone at this stage, keep things simple is always a good idea!
If I was going to recommend a filter, if you have one use a ND (Neutral Density or sometimes called a Moon Filter) to look at the moon. This will reduce the glare and make it much more comfortable.
Just some thoughts! Hope they help.
Malcolm |
Thanks Malcolm, I appreciate your advice and I'll follow up on it. It's great to be able to have access to a site like this for two budding hobbyist astronomers trying to find a clear path.