ETX 125 telescope impressions

Jupiter...a dot but I can see the moons!

Published on August 1, 2004 By Draginol In Pure Technology

ETX-125AT with 64 T-Adapter Had a great weekend at my uncle's. I took my telescope which is a Mead ETX 125. I can never get the results with it that I see on-line.

After a lot of setup, I managed to see Jupiter and its moons. But let me be clear on what that means: Jupiter is a dot and its moons are tiny dots by it.

I am using the equipment that came with it which is the 73 magnification lens that came wiht it. I don't have a "Barlow" lens yet which I suspect I need to get that to have any real luck.

The problem really I have with on-line photos of user experiences is that they're nearly all touched up. There are various techniques such as sampling (stacking) hundreds of images together. No. I don't care about that. I want to know what I will see when I look through the lens. The ETX 125 is a $1k telescope so I really want to know what I'm going to see with it. Not what I could, hours later, see on the computer. At that point, I might as well just download an image. For me, and my kids, the whole point is looking in there and seeing all this cool stuff.

I've also not had terrible luck with the auto finder. I'll painstakingly sync it up and then go to some common star only to have it get close but not close enough to be useful. For instance, if I take the time to sync it to Arcturus or Polaris or some other star, I expect to be able to tell it to go look at the Moon and for the motors to get pretty centered on the moon. Instead, it gets..kind of the right way but the moon is not centered. Maybe I'm doing something wrong as I'm new at that sort of thing but it's pretty frustrating.

But for me and the family, being able to see Jupiter's moons, even if they were dots, was pretty cool. So I don't want to make it sound like we didn't have fun. Plus a good bonfire and smores and great conversations with my aunt, uncle, cousin, etc. make it all worth it anyway.

But anyway, if you're a newbie amateur astronomy wannabe like me, don't get your expectations too high when you plunk down the bucks for these things. It takes a lot of patience and meticulous setup to get the most out of a telescope -- regardless of its size.

Comments

Mr_Frog

on Aug 01, 2004

I have learned that part of it is about the quality of the eyepieces. Orion Telescopes has a very nice selection to choose from. I highly recommend getting one of their 3-piece Plossl setups. I have a budget-line Tasco 90mm refraction scope. The eyepieces that come with it are in a word, shit. Upgrading to some quality eyepieces really helped make a significant difference. I was able to distinctly make out the rings around Saturn, and could see four of Jupiter's moons, and make out the spot after changing to quality eyepieces. And this is with a crummy $100 telescope, in the city. I can't wait until I can take it out into the dark countryside out here to see what I can really see.

-- B

Castle

on Aug 02, 2004

That scope is a beauty. Meade has always given me top quality. I have a Meade Schmidt-newtonian 8" (SN-8) with the LXD-75 mount. I have a wide range of Meade Super Plossl eyepieces from 6.4mm on up. Quality eyepieces are critical if you want to view the nightsky and be inspired by it's complexities. Jupiter is a favorite of mine. With the 6.4mm I can see the great red spot and the subtle color bands running across the planet. The beautiful range of colors in Orion's Nebula is a sight to see as well as the Andromeda galaxy. I could go on and on but the bottom line is, a good set of eyepieces will make you fall in love with your scope - even when it's a budget scope as Mr_Frog indicated. Here's a link to some Meade eyepieces that might help you out. http://www.meade.com/catalog/meade_4000/meade_series_4000_01.htm

happy stargazing

PS - with respect to your drive issues. Did you set your long/lat coordinates correctly? Some scopes need a celestial north (polaris) north star set up before the drive will correctly find the right ascension/declination coordinates of the objects you seek.

Draginol

on Aug 02, 2004

I saw just a dot. I mean, that was Jupiter. This was with the default eye piece. Just a dot for Jupiter. What am I doing wrong?

Castle

on Aug 02, 2004

You must be using a low magnification eyepiece like a 40 to 56mm. A good 6.4mm has a small field of view but good magnification. In combination with your high quality Meade optics, you will be happy with the results.

Castle

on Aug 02, 2004

The lower mag wide field of view eyepieces are great for moon views but not so much for tiny specs.

Steve

on Aug 02, 2004

With respect to the auto-finder: are you making sure that you level up and align the mount accurately? A little error there can have significant results ...

Steve

Draginol

on Aug 02, 2004

I'm uing the default one (not sure what it is off hand) but it gives 73X magnification. I'd guess it's closer to 26mm if I had to venture.

I had a hard time finding Jupiter even with that becaus eof the auto-finder issues.

With regards to the leveling and aligning. I thought I had done a pretty good job on that aspect. Besides, once I had it perfectly on Jupiter I synced it which you'd think would put it in good shape for the rest of the night. Or at the very least, yo'd think it would at least be able to point to the full moon.

Bruce

on Aug 03, 2004

Don't give up on your scope - I have a much lower-end Meade ETX60 and have had some very good viewing. There were two things I needed to add to the "stock" telescope to really get good images through it. 1) a decent tripod (and a stable / vibration-free place to set up) and 2) some higher magnification eyepieces.

I got the scope and tripod on eBay, but I am sure you can find something similar for your scope.

For the eyepieces, my scope came with the same 26mm eyepiece - you are not going to see much of anything but the moon with that. No real details on Jupiter, Saturn or Mars. All you will really see is that they are a bigger disc in the scope rather than just a brighter point (as stars will be on magnification). To double the magnification just cut in half 26/2=13 - Meade sells a 12.4mm eyepiece. Then I added a 9.7mm. You could probably get away with 6.4mm with the amount of light the 125 brings in. A 2x or 3x barlow is a nice piece but can be very clumsy to set up and a pain to refocus. A relatively small selection of eyepieces is really a better bet.

As for the Autostar, it is a great tool. But get started "manually" with the moon, some planets, a few double stars, etc. Then when you are comfortable with the scope you can make sure your lat/long are accurate and that you've got Polaris right, you are level to the ground (good tripod will have a bubble level), etc. I have seen some pretty nice deep space items with the Autostar that I would never have found on my own. Granted nebulas just look like fuzzy blobs with all the lights around here and the minimal light my scope brings in.

If you are expecting textbook images through your scope (other than the moon) you will be a bit dissapointed. If you are trying to learn your way around the sky and "see for yourself" then you should be pleased.

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