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I got up at 3AM this morning and had my first ever views of Jupiter and Saturn. What a blast! This is why I bought my telescope. I am still learning my equipment but I did get a view of the bands of Jupiter and was very pleasantly surprised when I saw 4 of her moons. So cool. My views of Saturn were not as good but I clearly saw her rings and that was my goal.
I have a Meade 130mm GoTo reflector and eyepieces in 9mm...15mm...20mm....26mm....and a 2x Barlow.....with a basic set of 4 filters.
Can anybody tell me how to get a sharper higher contrast image of Jupiters bands?
And I found Mars but couldn't get a decent view at all.
I am looking forward to better seeing later this month when theses 3 planets rise earlier in the evening.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Joe
Congratulations, Joe! I'll never forget my first view of Jupiter and Saturn. I was just as excited as you, and decades later, I still get excited whenever I view them through the eyepiece.
The sharpest views of the planets will be with the largest focal length eyepieces (26mm, 20mm), but of course, those are also the smallest and least magnified views. Views of the planets are greatly affected by turbulence in Earth's atmosphere, so the best eyepiece combination may differ from night to night (or even hour to hour). My advice is to start with low magnification and keep working your way up until the view is no longer pleasing. With the barlow lens, you essentially have 8 different magnifications, so play with them all and see what you like best.
Jupiter:
Stay at an exitpupil of roundabout 1- 0.8 mm. I.e. a magnification of 130X-167X or thereabout.
OKay, it will be just a small disc but in return you will get a lot of contrasty details. Higher magnifications will enlarge the image, but slightly wash out the details. The more magnification, the worse.
Refractors in frequency of use : *SW Evostar 120ED F/7.5 (all round ), * Vixen 102ED F/9 (vintage), both on Vixen GPDX. GrabnGo on Alt/AZ : *SW Startravel 102 F/5 refractor( widefield, Sun, push-to), *OMC140 Maksutov F/14.3 ( planets). Most used Eyepieces: *Panoptic 24, *Morpheus 14, *Leica ASPH zoom, *Zeiss barlow, *Pentax XO5. Commonly used bino's : *Jena 10X50 , * Canon 10X30 IS,*Swarovski Habicht 7X42, * Celestron 15X70, *Kasai 2.3X40 Rijswijk Public Observatory: * Astro-Physics Starfire 130 f/8, * 6 inch Newton, * C9.25, * Meade 14 inch LX600 ACF, *Lunt. Amateur astronomer since 1970.
Hi Joe. I remember my first experiences many years ago. First the moon, then Jupiter, and next Saturn. What a joy to see these objects with your own eyes and through your own telescope. Later comes the DSO's. I agree with all of the above advice. I remember once observing Jupiter and the equatorial belts were well visible and then not so visible, like someone was sliding a horizontal window back and forth. This was due to the upper atmospheric thermal spherules in my sky. For planets, I pretty much start with a 20mm eyepiece, then my sweet 16mm eyepiece, and on nights of great seeing and conditions, a 9mm eyepiece. I would rather see a small but nice image rather than a larger useless blob. I hope this helps Joe, and thank you for your great report.
Marshall
Sky-Watcher 90mm f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain on motorized Multimount
Orion Astroview 120ST f/5 Refractor on EQ3 mount
Celestron Comet Catcher 140mm f/3.64 Schmidt-Newtonian on alt-az mount
Celestron Omni XLT150R f/5 Refractor on CG4 mount with dual axis drives.
Orion 180mm f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain on CG5-GT Goto mount.
Orion XT12i 12" f/4.9 Dobsonian Intelliscope.
Kamakura 7x35 Binoculars and Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars. ZWO ASI 120MC camera.
>)))))*>
Gabrielle See Far Sticks: Elita 103/1575, AOM FLT 105/1000, Bresser 127/1200 BV, Nočný stopár 152/1200, Vyrobené doma 70/700, Stellarvue NHNG DX 80/552, TAL RS 100/1000, Vixen SD115s/885 EQ: TAL MT-1, Vixen SXP, SXP2, AXJ, AXD Az/Alt: AYO Digi II, Stellarvue M2C, Argo Navis encoders on both Tripods: Berlebach Planet (2), Uni 28 Astro, Report 372, TAL factory maple, Vixen ASG-CB90, Vixen AXD-TR102 Diagonals: Astro-Physics, Baader Amici, Baader Herschel, iStar Blue, Stellarvue DX, Tak prism, TAL, Vixen Eyepieces: Antares to Zeiss (1011110) The only culture I have is from yogurt
Nice deal Joe, now you're definately hooked! It will be better viewing them in a month or so for sure
Keep looking up and all the best,
Mark
"The Hankmeister" Celestron 8SE, orange tube Vixen made C80, CG4, AZ-EQ5 and SolarQuest mounts.
Too much Towa glass/mirrors.
Solar:
H/A - PST stage 2 mod with a Baader 90mm ERF on a Celestron XLT 102 (thanks Mike!)
Ca-K - W/O 61mm, Antares 1.6 barlow, Baader 3.8 OD and Ca-K filters with a ZWO ASI174mm.
W/L - C80-HD with Baader 5.0 & 3.8 Solar film, Solar Continuum 7.5nm and UV/IR filters with a Canon EOS 550D. Member of the RASC
If money was no object, I would suggest taking your kit to South America. From the USA, Jupiter and Saturn are low in the sky. Once we get to the end of July, they will become evening objects and best placed at local midnight (1 AM in daylight savings time). Jupiter will be best placed for viewing from the USA in about 6 years' time and Saturn in about 14.
In the case of Mars, you only need to wait until October. It is too far away from Earth now.
A variable polarising filter helps get more contrast and less glare and before I had one, I used sunglasses.
