What is the highest magnification you have gone to.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Had some fun one steady night at Mt Stromlo using the old 9" Oddie refractor ( ) we pushed it over 1000X on Mars at oposition and the planet filled the field..very cool

Generally I agree with what Mark said though

Mike

[ralph1]

'Only' 250X for me but I regularly wish I had the eyepieces to go higher. The telescope is 130mm. For me there is a noticeable improvement jumping from 1X to 2X per mm of aperture.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

There is quite interesting article that is in the March issue of Sky & Tel (the US version) that is available as an electronic version, on just this subject.

Malcolm

[ariefm71 (Arief)]

Mark, definitely a 10" f/6 planetary newtonian with Suchting or Zambuto mirror can do much better than 250x magnification

Originally Posted by Satchmo

Its all a bit sketchy and personal talking about max magnifications ! People tolerance for loss of image sharpness seems to be much greater on fairly high contrast monochromatic objects like the Moon , Mars and Saturn. If your seeing conditions are `diffraction limited ' and your vision is good the maximum useful magnification is around 1X per mm of aperture - in other words a 12" reflector will be showing a visible first diffraction ring on fainter stars at around 300X , and there will technically be no more information accessible in the image . Despite the fact that you are not actually seeing any more detail your tolerance for magnifying the image may go way beyond this particularly on the aforementioned high contrast objects and if your vision is below par. Depending on the seeing artefacts there is certainly going to be no gain in going over 50 X per inch.

You seem to have the same scope as mine!

Its a really interesting if not quite subjective topic ! I think I used to push my 70mm ( 2.75" ) Flourite refractor up to about 100 X per inch on the Moon to impress my friends

[Vegeta (Ibrahim)]

500x for me, I coupled my 2x Barlow with my 6mm Orion edge on. I've only ever used that combination twice now. The seeing conditions were perfect. One night on Jupiter, and the other night on Saturn. The view was unbelievable!!! It's rare that seeing actually allows that couple

[Satchmo]

Originally Posted by ariefm71

Mark, definitely a 10" f/6 planetary newtonian with Suchting or Zambuto mirror can do much better than 250x magnification

Arie , my point was that even in superb seeing lets say you are pushing to 1000X on Saturn or the Moon it is empty magnification. If 250X on the trapezium stars ,for example , is revealing the first ring of the airy pattern ( if you have normal acuity ) then you are definitely not going to see anything more particularly by increasing the magnification . If the seeing is not so good ( airy pattern not stable) and your eyes not so good , you might see the airy pattern structure a little more clearly at 500X ( 50 X per ich for a 10" ) but that is nothing to do with the quality of the telescope telescope .

Discussions of highest magnification reached are highly subjective and experienced based. When someone claims to have reached 100X per inch with an XYZ mirror `without image breakdown ' I laugh a little because I know that with good optics and seeing diffraction structure is pretty well visible at 25X per inch and higher magnifications than this are rather empty and subjective.

For me , the point of 'image break down' is where I can see an airy pattern around stars , so if at high magnification the seeing doesn't allow or the optical quality is not there , a high magnification `without image breakdown' is not any indicator of optical quality to me.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Originally Posted by Satchmo

Arie , my point was that even in superb seeing lets say you are pushing to 1000X on Saturn or the Moon it is empty magnification.

Hi Mark,

I don't really agree with this entirely. While I fully understand what you are saying, the point for me is that higher magnification (to a point) makes the already visible detail easier to see, due to the increased image scale.

You might be able to read everything on a car license plate at 30 metres but you can read everything a lot easier at 15 metres, where it all appears twice the size it did at 30 metres.

Cheers,
John B

[N1 (Mirko)]

Originally Posted by ausastronomer

Hi Mark,

I don't really agree with this entirely. While I fully understand what you are saying, the point for me is that higher magnification (to a point) makes the already visible detail easier to see, due to the increased image scale.

You might be able to read everything on a car license plate at 30 metres but you can read everything a lot easier at 15 metres, where it all appears twice the size it did at 30 metres.

Cheers,
John B

I've found this to be quite true myself. Aperture in mm usually gives the optimal power for the telescope, but not necessarily for the observer

Not much point in detail bein shown by the scope, but so small that I can't see it. That's where a little "empty magnification" does wonders.