Magnification for viewing planets

[Jnicholes]

Hi everyone,

I have not been on for a while, heres why.

Yeah, that’s smoke. Two wildfires nearby. One in Stanley, one South of Burley.

Still far away, but close enough to affect my astronomy viewing.

Anyway, that’s why I haven’t done much astronomy lately and haven’t posted lately. That’s not why I’m posting, though.

I’m trying to figure out a good magnification for viewing and photographing planets. Right now, with my current setup, my magnification is 35X. I can’t make out many details, hard to make out the rings of Saturn. I’m wondering if there’s a problem with my magnification.

Here’s my question, what would be a good magnification for planetary viewing and photography?

I already purchased a Barlow lens and some filters hoping these will help me out. I just can’t use them now, because of the smoke.

Well, I guess it’s not all bad. At least I got time to figure this out.

Any advice will be appreciated,

Jared

[sdbodin]

Same smoke here blowing in from the east, so I haven't been out either.

Back in the day when I first started out, magnification of 72x on my old 60mm/900mm efl frac showed the belts of Jupiter and rings of Saturn nicely. I suspect that the barlow and 20mm will be fine for now. As for filters, I have the full complement and all are back in the box they came in.

Then there is imaging, a whole different universe. Snaps with a cell phone are possible, but probably unfulfilling.

Clear skies,
Steve

[Bigzmey]

For visual on planets 100x would be about right with your scope. So, 8-10mm EP, or 15-20mm EP with 2x barlow.

[Shorty Barlow]

It's amazing what you can actually see around 100x on Jupiter and Saturn. I had about an hour last night with Jupiter using my 102mm Mak'. The conditions were far from perfect and I reckon I was getting about 90x with a zoom. I could still see Io's shadow transit. For a while I could make out Io against the limb as a tiny pale yellow disc.

[Jnicholes]

Thank you all for the input, I appreciate it. The smoke is getting worse, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to try out your advice.

Here’s hoping it clears up soon.

Jared

[Star Dad]

Years ago - when I was truly a neophyte - I bought a 5x barlow - and have NEVER used it. But Mars is approaching, and I had some time available during an outreach program so I set up a test using the sun. I set up using my 1000mm Orion telescope, the ASI294MC, and the 5x Barlow. To my astonishment I was able to actually get a reasonable focus. It appears that it would be equivalent to about 110X - so in my case a 9MM lens - which also happens to be the lens I use most often for visual. Of course, now that the test is done and I know where to put the focuser, I've got solid clouds for several days. I've read that one should consider your camera to be equivalent to 50mm lens... so my 1000/50 = 20x and using a 5x barlow 5000/50 = 100X. That just also happens to be a sweet spot for focusing and getting sharp images. Given the large sensor of the 294 camera I might just be able to produce some decent planetary images. Hope this helps!