help

hi iam a begginer in all this so can u help. recently i have obtained a 4.5 bosch & loud reflector telescope, when i observe the moon the image is fine until i try to look at say mars then it becomes blury and i can see the supports for the viewing mirror in side the scope is this normal and what can i do

Hi beginner - any chance of a name? We're all friends here

Do you have any more details on the scope and the eyepiece that you're using? Also, can you confirm if its a Bosch and Lomb scope?

We'll try and get you sorted quickly!

Cheers

Dave

HI sory names mike i live in the north east of the uk, yes it is a bosch and lomb telescope prof 780200 i have two eye pieces these being a 9 mm and a 25 mm iam also not sure what kind of detail i should be getting with these type of lenses ie when i focus the lenses in all i get is a small red dot when loking at mars.ps thanx for replying.

Hi Mike - welcome aboard!

I had a trawl through the internet but failed to come up with a Bosch and Lomb reflector telescope with that code number. Well, no Bosch and Lomb reflectors at all!

Its a bit tricky to give you any sort of advice without more details on the telescope. But I'll give you one suggestion that may be a solution...

In the case of reflectors, you may need to collimate the telescope. This is where you line up the secondary mirror with the eyepiece tube (the bit you look through. You then line up the primary mirror with the secondary. This ensures that all the focused light from whatever you are looking at goes directly into your eye.

An uncollimated telescope will give blurry images of planets etc and stars look like miniature comets - they flare to one side. You will also see mirror supports where they shouldn't be.

My guess is you need to collimate your scope. By the way, Bosch and Lomb are known for good quality optics so you should get good images - eventually.

If you don't know what collimation is or are afraid of getting it wrong, I really only have two suggestions. The first (and best) is to join a local astronomy club. The folks there will give you loads of help - someone may even collimate the scope for you.

The second suggestion is to the search the net for collimations techniques. There are good articles out there which should help.

If you get the scope working correctly, from a good dark site you should be able to make out some detail on Mars - it will be subtle with a scope this size but it should be there.

Regarding the eyepieces, the 9mm one will give you the biggest magnification so that'll be the best for the planets. For stars, galagiex, nebulae etc, the 25mm eyepiece will you you a wider field of view (you can see more of the sky) and will fit in bigger objects. The 9mm will zoom in - but you'll see less of the sky.

Hope this helps...

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers

Dave