Recently was given a telescope for my birthday, but having a few problems with it that make it less fun to bother with it.

First a problem that will come at no surprise, too much light in the city. I live in the suburbs of Sydney so you can see a decent amount of stars. But when I look though the telescope I can't see anything. Is this because of too much light, or because I just haven't mastered the art of focusing in on any one particular star?

Second, related to the above, is there anything i can get to cover around my eye that i use to look through the telescope. I find it difficult to keep my eye steady on the eye piece so as to block out the "lighter" darkness of the sky compared to the dark darkness you see through the scope. I'm thinking of some kind of hood piece for over the eye piece. A towel over my head doesn't seem to work very well.

Three, searching for a good way to keep the telescope steady. The one night sky object I can find is the moon. But it's steady rise means it quickly goes out of view from the lens not long after I've got it. I find when I go to move the telescope just a little I'll often bump it completely "off course" as such, and have to spend ages trying to find the moon again.

Four, is it wrong to spy on the nude beach on the other side of the bay? ops:

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Others can probably give you better answers, but posting with what kind of telescope it is will probably allow them to give you more accurate information.

1. If you can see it with your naked eye, you can see it with the telescope. It sounds like you're just not aiming or focusing the telescope properly. This takes time and practice. I can't do it.

2. You can get eyepieces that have rubber collars around them, assuming you can interchange eyepieces. They're convenient, but not necessary. After some practice, you'll be able to look through the eye piece while keeping your other eye open, anyway, while ignoring everything the extra eye is picking up. It reduces the number of face cramps.

3. Just about everything in the sky moves at the same rate, so there's not much you can do about this.

4. Is it a public beach?

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You can't take the sky from me.

What kind of scope is it? If you can't see anything make sure the lens cap has been removed. For a pittance you can get a telrad that will project a reticle. No magnification required. If you want a cheap telrad, tape a papertowl roll to it. Site through the papertowel tupe and you should be real close to the desired object.

Does it have removable eyepieces? If so you can get light pollution filters that will help. Also, don't go for highest magnification, you'll lose light and dim the object.

No clue, I imagine there is. It's nver been a problem for me. see above comment for removable eyepieced and such

I am assuming it's on a tripod? If so very gentle pursuasion is all you need. a fraction of a millimeter translates into huge distances. if you use the paper towl roll method described above, it will help with repositioning the scope.

No! if they didn't want people looking at them, they would be wearing clothes. You may not care to look though, the biggest problem with nude beaches is the severe lack of quality control.

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Hi Inferno,

Do you work in the CBD or live nearby it? If so, PM me and I will give you the best resource in the city for any telescope-related questions (don't want to discuss it openly here in case it's felt that I'm promoting a specific business 8-[ ).

Re question 4 - keep in mind that an astronomical telescope inverts the image......

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If I'm reading this right, it sounds like you may not be holding your eye at the correct distance from the eyepiece. Depending on the size of the eyepiece, you have to hold your eye at a certain distance to ensure the view thru the ep completely fills up your field of view. The higher the power (e.g. smaller the ep), the closer you have to get your eye to the lens.

It almost sounds like your either too close or too far from the ep, which will cause "tunnel vision", producing a shrunken "lighter darkness" surrounded by pitch black nothingness.

The "lighter darkness" is your actual goal here, not the pitch black stuff. Move your eye until the lighter darkness fills up your field of view.

As for targeting. If you've already managed to focus on the moon, then your doing good. Keep in mind, stars, even thru big scopes, will still just look like stars because of their distance. Try for Saturn and Jupiter next. You should be able to get these in focus pretty easily.

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I have the same light problem when using my solar filter. The best I can come up with is a hat with a brim that cuts out some of the ambient light. If you come up with a better idea, I'd love to hear about it.

By your description of the moon moving quickly out of your field of view, I suspect that you are using a high power eyepiece. This can definitely limit your ability to "find" objects in the scope. The "lost object when nudged" indicates the effect of a small aperture with too high a magnification.

The usual procedure is to use a low power eyepiece, center the object you wish to view, then move to a higher power eyepiece if necessary. Also, if you could provide a description of the telescope, such as brand, aperture, and eyepiece size, we could give a little more specific help.

Just a thought. To aleviate the moving starfield problem you could try looking in the direction of the Southern Cross, the arms of which will rotate slowly about the centre (I see you are in Oz) That would give you time to find the target, get used to the 'scope and make any adjustments before you try finding more slippery targets. As with all things practice makes perfect.

4) I'm not even going to put a foot on that road, nevermind walk down it

Reading between the lines though I suspect you have an astro/terrestial refractor which are fairly basic so I wouldn't expect to be able to view Hubble type deep sky objects or be able to count Saturn's rings. Venus should however be a doddle. Nice bright object, easily located and very distinct phases.

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I would think you should also be able to see jupiter and it's moons as well. I am able to see them clearly using 15x60 bino's.

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