What should I expect to see...

[slippo74 (Cristiano)]

Hi All!

Firstly I would like to extend in advance my apologies for my terrible English (unfortunately not my first language). Since moved in Australia in 2006 I'm still fighting to get my level of English a bit better than what learned at school.

I always been really interested about the deep space and all this marvellous pictures of planets, stars, nebulas, galaxies... so suddenly I've decided to improve my limited human eyes with the help of a telescope.
I went through several articles while browsing internet and my telescope choice was a newtonian reflector. I don't know if that was the right decision to make but it seems to me a good equipment for a beginner.
So today I bought a Bintel BT-150EQ Deluxe Telescope (150mm parabolic primary mirror with a 750mm focal length) which come with 3 good eyepieces 25mm, 15mm and 9mm and a quite stable German Equatorial Mount (https://www.bintelshop.com.au).

I just did my first try few hours ago from my small backyard, but living close to the city doesn't help at all. The number of stars viewable is, I assume, drastically reduced due to the lights from the city. However it was quite exciting to calibrate the finderscope and learn hot to use the equatorial mount (I know is nothing of special but I had good time).

My question is what should I expect to see looking at the sky with a small equipment like mine?
I'm sure that pointing the scope to the moon will be a great experience but... can I raise my expectations to something more deeper than that or is preferable to leave this for when I'll get a better telescope?

Any input is more than welcome., thanks a lot!

Cristiano.

[erick (Eric)]

Hi Cristiano and Welcome!

Yes, when the Moon returns to the sky you will enjoy looking at it. Don't wait until it is the full Moon, but watch it as the sunlight/shadow line (the "terminator") creeps across its surface, moving slowly further each night. At the terminator, the craters and mountains are lit at an oblique angle, so you can see them better.

Certainly look at Jupiter. It is high and bright in the evening sky now. You should be able to make out two dark bands across its gaseous surface. Its four moons will change position every night. Last night (Friday), they were all on one side. You may even see the black dot of the shadow of a moon on the surface, as the moon moves between the Sun and Jupiter. Over a few hours you will see the shadow move and the moons change their positions.

When Saturn comes out from behind the Sun, it will be seen in the morning sky. Unfortunately its rings are edge-on to us at the moment, so you'll have to wait for a year or so to really start to see them again.

There are lots of clusters of stars that you can spend a long time examining with your telescope. The Jewel Box cluster (NGC 4755) to the south may be a little low this time of year. In the morning hours, the Pleiades (M45), will be a good site.

Searching out double stars (particularly different coloured stars) can be done. For your scope's resolving power, they will need to be fairly well separated. Look for Albireo (beta Cygni) in the northern sky. Try looking at Rigel kent (alpha Centauri) to the south.

All these can be seen with your telescope, even in fairly bright skies.

You might try for some globular clusters, but most will be difficult. See if you can find the globular cluster 47 Tuc (NGC 104) to the South, towards midnight when it is up higher.

Galaxies and Nebula will probably be very difficult unless you took your scope to a dark sky site. Look for all the Star Camps and the various gatherings on New Moon weekends. If you can attend one of these with your telescope, you will get a lot of help and will see many more things.

Let us know what you see.
Eric

[slippo74 (Cristiano)]

Hi Eric,

Much appreciated!
I just back from round 2 with my telescope and I was looking at something really bright on the sky. In the beginning I though it was a star. So I moved across the eyepieces till I put the 9mm... and surprise for me it was Jupiter! Such a great emotion considering this is my first encounter with a planet. Really clear the two dark bands across its surface. Amazing! I can't wait to get the moon.

I was wondering if buying a proper eyepiece I can obtain a bigger image as Jupiter shows quite clear and detailed but such small object to watch.

I believe I'm going to love my telescope more and more...

Again thanks for your advice.

[astro744]

You will find Jupiter is best at about 120x to 200x on your telescope (in fact most telescopes due to seeing).

May I recommend a 2x (quality) Barlow like the Tele Vue 2x 1.25" Barlow. This will give you an extra set of eyepieces automatically and your 25,15 & 9 become 12.5, 7.5 & 4.5mm. The 4.5mm will give you 167x on Jupiter which is ideal.

You could add a 6mm Plossl to give you 125x without Barlow but this eyepice has a small peep hole and short eye relief and is difficult to use (but not impossible). You could also add an 8mm Tele Vue Plossl and this will give you 94x & 188x with 2x Barlow or add an 11mm Tele Vue Plossl that will give you 68x, 136x and add a 3x Tele Vue Barlow to give 204x.

May I also suggest you get a 32mm Tele Vue Plossl (currently on sale) to give you a very low power sweeping eyepiece with 23x magnification and a 2 degree field. You will absolutely love this eyepiece and it will show you all of M45 - Pleiades and other large clusters and nebulae such as Eta Carina very nicely. An O-III or UHC filter will also help boost contrast dramatically on objects such as Eta Carina and show you the nebula in its full extent and make objects such as the Veil nebula visible with filter whereby it is generally not visible without (O-III needed for best results with Veil).

You need a star atlas and on paper I recommend Sky Atlas 2000.0 Deluxe or in electronic format try Stellarium. See if you can locate Omega Centauri before it gets too low (SW near Crux in evening this time of year). It is a wonderful globular cluster and is visible to the unaided eye.

To summarize:

Add 32mm Tele Vue Plossl to give 23x at 2 degree field.

Add 2x Tele Vue Barlow to give 100x with current 15mm eyepiece and 167x with current 9mm eyepiece.

Add 3x Tele Vue Barlow to give 150x with current 15mm eyepiece and 250x with current 9mm eyepiece for nights of exceptional seeing. The exit pupil at 250x will be 0.6mm which is still quite OK but on the lower end (ie. dimmer view).

Add 11mm Tele Vue Plossl to give 68x, 136x (2x) & 204x (3x). This is a really nice complement to 150x & 167x.

Add 8mm Tele Vue Plossl to give 94x, 188x (2x) & 281x (3x). The 281x is unlikely to be useful on the planets on most nights expept for those of exceptional seeing.

My first telescope was a 15cm (6") EQ Newt and I still have it and use it and have observed many details on Jupiter at 170x.

[musca in soup (Jim)]

Hi Christiano

Firstly ! I have only been using this site for a couple of weeks and it is excellent.

Jupiter is fantastic I agree and nothing beats the buzz of finding and seeing it for yourself with your own gear. It has 4 easily visible moons that you can easily see as star-like dots beside the planet (even with a steady pair of binoculars). They are all in a line in the same direction as those dark bands you could see on Jupiter itself. As the night progresses, the moons vary in their position, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. You could see 3 moons out 1 side, 1 out the other at 7pm , then by 9pm see 2 on either side and so on, as they rotate around the planet.

If you have a computer you could download the free program Stellarium, which will predict for you what things are visible for you every night of the year. It will also show you where the the moons of Jupiter are all the time.

The other thing I'd suggest is get a planisphere (wheel with sky map on it that you can learn the heavenly layout at different times of year) and get the book "Astronomy 2009" from any bookshop, which tells you bits and pieces about what to expect and where to find it. It is about $20, planisphere, probably less. A new edition is put out every year.

Also I'd suggest just lie on your back with your planisphere and a red torch (to preserve your night vision) and learn where different constellations are, which makes it easier to find more interesting fuzzy things.

Enjoy

Jim

[slippo74 (Cristiano)]

Thanks all, really informative.

I believe at this stage I will move in get good quality Barlow (2x and 3x) to improve the view from those eyepieces included out of the box.

About the software to use, I found StarMapPro for iPhone to be a reliable solution. The strong points are that I can avoid to bring my laptop plus it use the iPhone digital Compass/GPS showing me on fly what I can see in the sky based on my actual position. A big help for a beginner.

Now I have to find a good spot where to watch the sky in Kirribilli (Sydney).

Again thanks for your replies.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Cristiano - welcome to the forums!

Might I suggest initially getting a TeleVue 2x barlow and using it with your current eyepieces. This will effectively double your eyepieces. Bintel's site isn't clear, but does your scope's focuser accept 2" eyepieces, or only 1.25"? If so, I'd recommend this eyepiece:

2" 80° UW 30mm eyepiece

which can be found here:

http://www.andrewscom.com.au/site-co...ccessories.htm

Just scroll down slowly from the top of this page and you'll find it. It's a bargain at $99. It's not optically the best eyepiece on the market, far from it, but it does offer really wide views, it's pretty crisp in the centre, and not too bad at the edges. There is some distortion, but any type of eyepiece like this, no matter who the manufacturer, will offer distortion. It's a real bargain at this price to be honest. You can see a review on IIS (Ice In Space) itself, here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/42-134-0-0-1-0.html

It's a nice ultra wide angle (80 degree apparent field of view) that is good for viewing wider nebulae structures, or just simply homing in on a target.

For viewing - my honest advice, if possible, go to dark skies. My recommendation is the national park out near Glenbrook (can't remember the name) - very dark skies. It's been a long while since I've been out there (15 years plus), but the SMC (Small Magellanic cloud) and LMC (large cloud) are easily visible from this location. You can camp there, it's not very expensive either, there's fireplaces available and some camping facilities, and also toilets. You could always go for a Friday and Saturday night viewing session. During the day, there's plenty to do - bush walking, photography (lots of wildlife - wallabies, kangaroos, galahs, cockatoos, lots to see). You can even travel a few kilometres to jelly bean and black been pools and having a swim in the warmer months! The water is very clear, very clean and a delight to swim in.

Hope this helps!

Dave

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

In addition to above, I'd recommend downloading some star charts (free, off the Internet!!!) and also some software as well (also free!!!). I'll do this in order.

Basic star charts:

1. Mag 7 star Atlas project - http://www.archive.org/details/Mag_7_Star_Atlas

It's a good, basic, all round star chart set. Ready to print if you want, or you can just view them on a computer.

2. Messier finder charts - http://www.solarius.net/Pages/Articl...essier_finders

Quick and easy finder charts to locate all of the Messier objects

3. Taki's star atlas - http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas/atlas.htm

Another great basic atlas.

don't be fooled by these basic star atlases - they show a wealth of objects!

Advanced star charts:

1. Taki's 8.5 magnitude star charts - http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/atlas_85/atlas_85.htm

an excellent set of star charts. These are mostly better than what you can buy imho!

2. Jose Torres' TriAtlas project - http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/triatlas.html

3 sets of different chart groups that you can download - mag 9, mag 11, mag 13. These are the BEST star charts you can get imho, at least in terms of objects.

If you are savvy, and want to run Linux etc, you can download the software below and create you very own maps!!!

http://pp3.sourceforge.net/

I'd recommend a moon atlas too, and the Virtual Moon atlas is downloadable, and best of all, free! You can get it here:

http://ap-i.net/avl/en/start

For downloadable software, I'd recommend 2 programs - Stellarium, and Cartes Du Ciel. They can be found at the following 2 links:

http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/

http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/

Hope this helps!

Dave

[slippo74 (Cristiano)]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for all the infos...
Based on the description of my telescope (https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=6328) it comes with a 2" Crayford focuser, so I assume it can fit a 2" 80° UW 30mm eyepiece as well.
Definitely the TeleVue 2x Barlow will be my next buy. Reading some feedback I understood that also a powermate would be a valid option in which invest my money.
However I'm starting to get confused with all the possible eyepieces, sizes and features, so for now I'll get the Barlow and learn how to use what I already have before to pick up a new eyepiece.

Today walking around my area I found a couple of really dark spots which I will use next weekend, but both limited to a small portion of the sky. So, your recommendation of national park is in my wish list, thanks!

Cheers!

p.s. forgot to add... I've reviewed the star chart and the software you linked and already downloaded the atlas. At the moment I've opted to use this http://www.star-map.fr/starmapProScreenshots.html .

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

You're welcome! You won't get dark skies around Kirribilli, I guarantee it. Far too much light pollution from the Sydney basin. Dark skies really do make a difference to what you can see imho.

As to the powermate, I'd really recommend not going that route. It'll be rare that you'll be able to really use high magnifications to be honest. You'll probably want to keep under 250x with that setup. Seeing WILL dictate how much magnification you can use - by seeing I mean the quality of the seeing conditions (things like air turbulence etc).

Dave

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

why not take your scope along to any one of Sydney's many astro societies on an observing night -before you spend a lot of money on all sorts of gear-and get to try before you buy?

[slippo74 (Cristiano)]

Thanks Dave, I'll follow up your recommendation...

Originally Posted by seeker372011

why not take your scope along to any one of Sydney's many astro societies on an observing night -before you spend a lot of money on all sorts of gear-and get to try before you buy?

Yeah, I guess this is the best advice. Thnx.

[DavidU (Dave)]

You blokes have given cristiano some awesome info.