Tonights Viewing

Hello again,

I finally got a chance to get the new telescope out this evening for
a quick look around. Its a Celestron omni XLT120. I spend a good
while getting the polar allign right but it was just a test excerise.

I got tracking on Mars and it was amazing to see it. But I didn't see
any detail at all, just a bright orange glow. I used all the eye pieces
with and without the Barlow.

Just wondering if this the most I can see with this kind of
telescope or am I doing something very wrong??

Cheers,

John

John - fine detail on Mars is hard to see visually except with a very large telescope. So its unlikely you're doing anything wrong.

All I ever saw visually on Mars was the polar cap.

You *can* use filters to enhance different aspects of the planets. I remember seeing a good article by Celestron that listed the various Wratten filters and what they were specifically good for.

What you should do is try Saturn and see what you get. Its on the rise now but still a bit low (in the East). Give it another hour or two - it'll be worth the wait.

Dave

On a really clear night, with Mars at it's closest to Earth and at its highest in the sky, you *might* see *some* faint detail with a 120mm scope such as yours. If everything on the scope was perfect, then astrophotography would be the way to bring out any detail.

You'd want an 8" reflector or higher to see any kind of detail visually.

Keep on truckin' John!

Seanie.

You just need a clear steady night John to see detail with
that size scope.
I've an ETX-125 and detail can indeed be seen when Mars is
close, as in right now.
You may find an IR fiter on the eyepiece may help a bit.

Dave and I were observing in the Burren tonght and using the club
10'' and a pair of Daves binoviewers with a 1.5 barlow the view of Mars
was unreal - dare I say photographic.
Crystal clear detail esaily made out.
Again, perfect conditions and a modest scope will glean great results.

Yea, that was the best I've seen Mars in a few years, the binoviewers really made the differance, it has a built in 1.5x barlow and we were using 15mm eyepieces, the scope is a 10" F10 so that gave us a magnification of 250x, at times of good seeing the images was just amazing, Sytris major and the polar caps were VERY clearly visible was was other small distinct features.
Saturn was also good as was the orion nebula.
Without the binoviewer the view of Mars looked much more washed out, 2 eyes are better then one!

Yeah, Mars is a difficult target. Better seeing conditions can make a big difference, as can practice. My first couple of years I vastly preferred Jupiter and Saturn (which readily show so much more detail), but now I'm becoming quite a fan of Mars.

Cheers,
-- Jeff.