Start with something simple, and keep learning.Ī very basic star test should tell you if it's collimated. Google "how to collimate a telescope", there are many techniques, methods and devices out there: hole-in-a-cap, cheshire, laser, barlowed laser, autocollimator, star test, etc. Ignore them, any telescope with a 4-vane spider has them.Īs for the lack of sharpness - have you ever collimated your telescope? It's a very important part of maintenance, it's like changing the oil on your car's engine. You should see flares even with some bright stars, such as Sirius. Is it supported by 4 vanes in a + pattern? Those create the flares with any sharp bright object, and are totally normal. Look at the secondary mirror holder at the top of the tube. It is possible that the "flares" you see are the normal spikes generated by the spider vanes. You would be better off spending the money on better quality eyepieces than those which came with your telescope. They serve no useful purpose on a telescope as small as yours. Even then, the small aperture of your telescope may preclude using this high a magnification.ĭon't waste time or money on filters. The shortest focal length eyepiece commonly used, 4mm, will only get you 162x, which is only barely adequate for planetary observing. The short focal length of your telescope, while providing fine wide-field views of deep sky objects, is not well suited for high magnifications. Your eyepieces give you 26x and 65x, whereas serious planetary observing begins at around 150x, and is mostly carried out at 200x to 300x. The planets require much more magnification than any other object you're likely to look at, except for very close double stars. Planetary observing is probably the most challenging aspect of visual astronomy, because the planets are so small. As a result of these two factors, seeing detail on Mars is a challenge even in much larger telescopes than yours!įinally, there is the question of your eyepieces. Secondly, their small size makes them more subject to the degradation of "seeing," turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. On Mars you may see a tiny polar cap and a faint smudge or two on the rest of the disk. In fact, no detail is ever visible on Venus except for its phase (slightly more than half). First, any detail on these planets is vey much smaller in size than the detail on Jupiter. At present, both Venus and Mars are far away and, as a result, show very small disks, 22 and 13 arc seconds respectively, as compared to Jupiter, 34 arc seconds. The second factor is in the images themselves. Collimation is a normal part of the maintenance of all telescopes, and is not difficult if approached systematically. Collimation is the process of lining up the various optical elements in a telescope. First, the telescope may not be collimated properly. This is a different issue, and springs from two different causes. "they seem slightly blurred (almost impossible to get a sharp focus)".But, don't worry about them, as they actually have absolutely no effect on the main image, except for a slight loss of contrast. They are inherent in the telescope's design, and the only way to eliminate them is by going to a different design: a refractor or a Schmidt or Maksutov design. They are diffraction spikes caused by the spider which supports your diagonal mirror. This is normal for all Newtonian reflectors, so much so that most of us don't even notice them.
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