3 months on and getting a bit frustrated

hi guys,
i have now had my scope celestron c4-r for 3 months and it really is great for viewing the moon, stars and general sky surfing.

however, im getting a bit frustrated with planet viewing.
I cant see a damn thing. I have tried adjusting the focus and swopping between my two lenses 10/20mm but all i can see if a tiny dot, that looks the same as a star but may be a shade of difference.

They are definatley the right stars as i can identify them on a star chart and double checked on stellarium.

i dont expect to see moonstandard images in my scope, however i expect to see more than a coloured pin prick, at least some rings or something.

What am i doing wrong? answers on a postcard would be great, the warmenr nights are here so i intend to spend alot more time outside and i want to get the best of of my scope.

any help is greatly appreciated.
cheers
luke

Hey Luke you have all the classic symptoms of the early
stages of a disease known as aperture fever :lol:

But seriously if you cannot make out ring's around saturn
at x100 which is what your mag is with the 10mm eyepiece
then i suspect you have a problem.I remember reading a
review on that scope and the guy could clearly make out
the cassini devision at x200, you need a 5mm eyepiece to
achieve this or else combine a x2 barlow lens with the 10mm
if you have one.

Can you get treatment for that?

I can literally only see a pinprick and it doesnt look any bigger or detailed than the naked eye.

should the magnification with a 10mm be sufficient to see something worth getting excited over?

Just how big should the planet look in the eyepiece?

Hi Luke

Of all the planets, the only ones where you will easily see any detail are Saturn and Jupiter, followed by Venus (can see the phases and the fact that it is a disc) and mars (small but definitely a disc and possibly some features at v high powers.)

For the moment I suggest you concentrate on Saturn which is to be found in LEo and even at a low power such as X20 you should definitely be able to see the rings. At X100 you should have no problem seeing rings and getting the "wow" factor. Saturn however will be small in the eyepiece.

Is it my eyesight then? do you have to train your eyes to see detail in something the size of a pin prick?

When i focus the image until it is sharp in 20x or 10x it just beomes a crisp ball of light , slightly bigger than other stars in the sky but with no significant detail?

maybe im not getting decent seeing conditions, but i can not see anymore detail than i can in my bins?10*50

i can view other things in the sky great and the detail i get on the moon is amazing...i can nearly make out neil armstrongs foortprints
i should be happy with that for now, but im not, im impatient and i want to see rings!

its just planets i cant get...maybe i need to reign in my expectations of what i should see...the scope is good but no hubble. But i would expect to see the rings of saturn

you should defo be able to see saturns rings and perhaps even one or two of the brighter moons, but they will be tiny pinpoints of light.

in my cheapo 10x50 binoculars i cant seperate the planet from the ring but i can make out that saturn is elongated and not circular.

Perhaps your scope needs collomation, but it would want to be pretty far off to prevent you seeing anything.

im thinking you are mistaking a star for a planet. Purchase Sky at night or Astronomy now for a decent star chart relivant to the current month. it shows where the planets are in relation to the constellations.

Let us know how you get on and dont lose heart.