Comments on: How to look through a telescope http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/ nerd is punk Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:08:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: punkastronomy http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-208 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:46:32 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-208 Andres,
The first question is…what kind of telescope did you buy? How big is the primary mirror or objective lens on the front?

300x is a lot of power and it would take a pretty big telescope (in terms of the diameter of the objective I mentioned above) to be able to show a sharp image at that magnification. And it would take a night of what we call very good seeing, which means the atmosphere has very few thermal disturbances. Those nights are pretty rare! But you should still get a sharp view of Saturn at lower magnifications. Like getting really close to a magazine photograph, the image starts to break down into little dots and you can’t tell what it is anymore. Move to normal reading distance and the image appears sharp. Make sense?

Amateur astronomers have a rule of thumb for figuring out the maximum useful magnification of any telescope. Basically we say 50x per inch if aperture. If your scope has an objective of 76mm or 3 inches, the maximum useful aperture is 150x. This is a very general rule of thumb, and assumes really great optics and perfect seeing. So in practice, it’s lower.

Those starter telescopes that advertise 500x! are often not bad telescopes, but can’t possibly present a decent image at that magnification.

I hope this “clears it up” for you. So keep the magnification down and look for details on Saturn, the shadows of the rings, etc. And train that telescope on the moon for a spectacular view of our nearest neighboring planet!

]]> By: Andres http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-207 Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:59:56 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-207 Hi, I bought my first telescope and on my first day, out of pure luck, I managed to see Saturn and I got so excited I almost woke up the whole neighborhood so they could watch it. Then on the next days I had no luck at all and couldn’t see a thing; just before I was going to bury the thing on my garage I tried to fix the red dot finder that came with it and then I could point at anything with it and now we are back in business!!!
By the way, Saturn appears westbound around 8:30 PM but when I try to see it at 300x it looks super blurry, is there a way I could fix that? I tried adjusting the focus but no luck so far.

]]> By: punkastronomy http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-148 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:30:07 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-148 Tareq,
The first question is, can you see the entire moon through the eyepiece? If not, then you are using a too powerful eyepiece to begin with. Eyepieces come in different focal lengths (for example, 24mm and 12mm) and the shorter the focal length, the higher the magnification. If you only see a part of the moon, then it’s possible that what you are seeing is the earth’s rotation pulling you and your scope away from the moon! The moon appears to rise and set just like the stars and the sun, and a telescope pointed at the moon will show the moon’s apparent movement unless it has a motor to compensate for the earth’s rotation. With a low power eyepiece, however, the moon should stay in the scope long enough to get a pretty good look it, and you should be able to easily push the scope so it’s back in the field of view. If you are using a low-power eyepiece, and you can see the whole moon, but it slips quickly out of view, then it sounds like a problem with the telescope mounting. The scope might not be tight enough in the mount, so it’s not staying where you pointed it when you let go of it. Without knowing what type of scope it is I can’t say for sure. Can you tell us what you bought?
Don’t give up, there are answers!

]]> By: tareq http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-147 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:17:29 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-147 I brought my first telescope and the telescope aims at the the moon comes but goes away in a second

]]> By: punkastronomy http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-81 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:29:01 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-81 Manuela,
Actually, if you don’t have problems with your new scope, I’d love to hear about your first experience with the telescope too. That’s very exciting! Expect rain and clouds for the next three days, it’s the telescope buyer’s curse.
doug

]]> By: punkastronomy http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-80 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:28:00 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-80 Manuela,
If you have trouble with the new telescope, finding things or operating it, please feel free to write me. I’d be happy to help you out. Cheers
doug

]]> By: Manuela http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-79 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:12:27 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-79 Thank you so much for sharing, i get my first telescope tomorrow and i am so excited …cant wait till mid oct. to see those two (moon and jupitar) back together….;-)
greetings from the other side of the world under the same stars!

]]> By: Manuela http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-78 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:11:20 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-78 Thank you so much for sharing, i get my first telescope tomorrow and i am so excited …cant wait till mid oct. to see those two (moon and jupitar) back together….;-)
greetings from the other side of the world under the same starts!

]]> By: arin http://punkastronomy.com/2009/09/04/how-to-look-through-a-telescope/#comment-63 Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:56:37 +0000 http://punkastronomy.com/?p=75#comment-63 I read your article in the UTNE reader. It was awesome… makes me want to go find a telescope.

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