Have i got a crap Telescope?

hey ,
im very very new to astronomy . i was given a present of one this christmas...took it out one night , saw the moon...which was class.... but looking at the stars its just blurr...or small white dots...to be honest some seem better with the naked eye ...... im so new to this that i cant even tell what stars i was even lookin at... the spec on the telescope is ..focal lenght of main mirror =900mm , 2 eyepieces, 6.5mm and a 25mm , 2x and 1.5x barlow lens..Reflector type...Lens clear apertue 114mm...Resolving power
1" and Visual magnitude 12M......

So is it total crap...or ok for a begginer??? :roll:

What's the brand/model?

Basic 114mm f/8 reflector telescopes are good starter scopes for someone who has an interest in astronomy, but the quality varies. The collimation may need to be tweaked, or as is often the case, you may need a couple of better quality eyepieces to get you really started. The eyepieces supplied with telescopes are as often as not the weakest point of the package, particularly the shorter focal lengths like your 6.5mm.

Disregarding magnification, would you say that the view in the 25mm eyepiece is significantly better or worse than in the 6.5mm?

If you are new to telescopes the best thing you can do is join your local astronomical society or hook up with someone local who is already well versed and can help you get off to a good start. If that's not convenient don't worry, you've come to the right place

John is quite right griffineil, many a cheap telescope come with bad cheap eyepieces. Out of curiosity, what make is your telescope? As a comparison, there are boards users here that have had, (and still have in their posession) a 4.5 inch reflector like yours. Usually the brand is Helios or Celestron. But there are generic brands out there too.

Also, I think it is worth mentioning, that since you got the scope for Christmas, there have been very few cloudless nights, and even fewer CLEAR nights, so perhaps the viewing conditions were not as ideal as to what they COULD be when you saw these 'bad' stars. I would wait before completely knocking the scope back for six until you have had a really nice clear night with which to 'test' it optically, for clarity.

Other than that, all you can do is wait for that exceptional night - like the rest of us since, oh, I'd say, since September?

You might even try it during daylight on some landscape objects and look for aberration -> the blue/red tinge effect seen with bad optics. That would confirm bad eyepieces, and maybe even a slightly out-of-allignment mirror, which can be corrected by collimation.

Hope this helps, and welcome to IFAS!

Seanie.

Hi griffenneil

The lads mentioned about collimation, which can be sometimes hard to get your head around. Here are some links from Kerry Astronomy Clubs website that should help.
skyandtelescope.com/printable/howto/scopes/article_790.asp
homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.scagell/collimate.html%20
www.atmsite.org/contrib/Carlin/collimation/
www.nightskygazing.net/maintenance2.html

hope that helps. As for the stars, All you are ever going to see them as is dots of light or if conditions are bad and you are using your 6.5mm then maybe fuzzy blobs.

If I was you I would start of learning a few constellations such as Orion, Gemini and Auriga (which are easy to see this time of year and you can lthen try and track down M42 (the great orion Nebula), Open clusters M35 in gemini and M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga. When you are done with those have a look at saturn. your scope should show you the rings of saturn no bother and maybe (but I am not sure) even some banding on planet if conditions are good and your scope is collimated. You should also be able to spot a few of saturns moons.

Stick to the 25mm for almost everything, I would really only use the 6.5 for the moon or saturn. If you need more power I would use a barlow with the 25mm. This link should help yu find a few constellations. If you go out at night and look south you should spot orion
www.cosmonut.net/articles/Orion%20a%20stellar%20signpost.pdf

Also check out the observing challenge handbooks which members of this website have put together, start with the beginners and move onto binocular one, which is suitable for telescopes also.
www.irishastronomy.org/observers/challenges/index.php

Also it might be no harm picking up an astronomy magazine which will have guides as to what to see in the night sky.

I don't think your scope is the primary problem. Without knowing make/model its hard to say. It seems from your post your problem is that you don't know where to look. Even in large expensive telescopes, stars still look like points of light. What you need is a book to guide you so you can locate many of the wonderful objects in the night sky. Have you looked at Saturn yet. Saturn is the very bright starlike object in the south east around 10pm. It's easily the brightest 'star' in that part of the sky. You should easily be able to see it's rings in that telescope.

Remember the lower power eyepieces will almost always give you the best views. The higher power ones are only for use on the Moon and planets realistically.

A good book I'd recommend is Left Turn at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan Davis.

www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundred...?ie=UTF8&s=books

A little more experience and you'll be so totally hooked on this hobby!!

Keep at it!

This might seem like strange advice but bear with me till I finish!

What you need to go with your Telescope is a pair of binoculars. The gap between the scales you see with the un-aided eye and with any telescope is just too great. Regardless of what telescope you have 99.9% of the sky contains nothing of any real interest at all. Stars will always look like stars! The skill in Astronomy is finding the 0.01% of the sky where the cool stuff lies! You probably have more chance of winning the lottery than randomly stumbling onto something really cool the first time you take out a telescope. So ... why binoculars? Well, they are a nice half-way-house between the un-aided eye and a telescope. Also, binoculars will show you an awful lot more than you might think. There are literally hundreds of objects to see with your binoculars. Once you get to know a constellation in binoculars it will be so much easier to find the objects it contains with your telescope and then you'll really appreciate the telescope because of how much more detail it shows you in those objects than the binoculars do!

So, I'd recommend a pair of 10x50 binoculars and to concentrate on objects that astronomy books and magazines say are visible in binoculars even when you're using your telescope. Once you get profficient at finding your way round the sky you can move on to more difficult objects and a bigger telescope.

Good luck and lets hope for some clear skies so you can get lots of practice in!

Bart.