I have just bought a Meade 10inch schmidt newtownian telescope with an 26mm meade plossl eyepiece and a 6.7mm meade ultra wide angle eyepiece. I've taken it out a few times and have failed to see anything but the moon with it, i have followed instructions on where to find witch celestial objects and and have pionted my telescope at those exact areas but i'm still failing to see anything other than faint stars. Could somebody please tell me if i'm donig something wrong or if my telescope is just screwed up?

thankyou,

james,

Welcome to UT James!

I don't know too much about telescopes, but I had a similar problem with my telescope when I first got it. I was only able to see a blurry moon, faint looking objects, and when I took it out during the day and pointed it at a tree that was also blurry. What I learned later was that you shouldn't be searching for nebulas with a 4mm eyepiece and a 3X barlow attached to it... Next time you go out look for an easy celestial object, start out with small magnification and work your way up.

First of all, make sure your telescope is properly collimated so that you are getting the most of your optics.

If you are in an area where there is light pollution from street lamps, city glow, etc., it is not likely you will see a lot of deep sky objects. It is best to go out to a complete dark sky site where the Milky Way can be plainly seen.

As well, you will only "see" so much with a 10" mirror compared with a larger aperture mirror.

Let your eyes become accustomed to the dark - this could take up to 30 minutes but will help increase your viewing.

__________________
Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power. --Eric Hoffer

James,

I believe that your telescope has a GoTo drive. If it does, are you able to program it to locate a first magnitude star? Likely candidates (assuming that you're not in the southern hemisphere) in the early part of the night are Arcturus, Vega, Altair, Deneb, and Fomalhaut. (The very colorful second magnitude binary star Beta Cygni - Albireo - is another good choice.) If the telescope reliably acquires these stars, which are undoubtedly part of its catalog of alignment stars, the problem is not in the drive system. Try locating some of these bright deep-sky objects: M31 and its companion galaxy M32 in Andromeda, M2 in Aquarius, M30 Capricornus, M29 and M39 in Cygnus, M13 and M92 in Hercules, M57 in Lyra, M15 in Pegasus, M11 in Scutum, and M27 in Vulpecula. Information and pictures of these objects can be found at http://www.seds.org/messier/data3.html]

Do you have a Telrad pointing device? Is your finderscope accurately aligned? How bad is the light pollution at your observing site? The Meade Schmidt-Newtonians are fast telescopes (i.e., they have low f/ratios) so proper collimation is a must - see http://hometown.aol.com/astropjm/tel.html and http://www.astunit.com/tutorials/startest.htm

Many amateur astronomers locate deep-sky objects manually by star-hopping. If you want to learn this reliable technique, purchase Alan MacRobert's _Star-Hopping for Backyard Astronomers_ or the more elementary _Turn Left at Orion_. You'll need an atlas such as the Bright Star Atlas 2000.0 or, better still, the Sky Atlas 2000.0.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I know, with it being a fast telescope finding deepsky objects manually is very difficult!

Actually, a fast telescope provides a wider field of view with a given eyepiece so DSOs are easier to sweep up, at least the large and bright ones that is.

Would you supply some pertinent information about the scope and the procedure you're using when observing? I asked a number of questions. Answering them may provide information that will be of benefit to you.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I've not been using the go to feature as i'm not very impressed with it. On the 10inch model the motor struggles to move under the wieght of the telescope and you constantly have to balance the wieght especially when it tilts to the side. I've just been trying to locate objects in the solar system at the moment to ensure that my telescope is actually functioning properly although you brought up a good piont about light pollution, as the area that i live in has high light pollution around the horizon.

james

If all you are trying to find are solar system objects -- the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, plus the fainter ones, it doesn't matter whether you have bright, polluted skies. You get so much light from these bodies that it cuts right through the pollution.

Don't knock star-hopping. I've been doing it for over fifty years. About 15 years or so ago I went to the Telrad system on my 10"f4 Newtonian. I've never used a GOTO but there will be one on the new GEM I'm getting along with a 7"f7 fluorite Petzval APO refractor.

Few might know what a Petzval is or how it's used in a refractor (lens telescope). Replacing a more expensive third-element in a triplet objective (an objective is either a lens or mirror), the Petzval is a doublet sited close to the focuser. It has the effect of making the chromatic aberration less *and* flattening the field. Also, I feel better about having the softer (that is, softer than glass) fluorite element inside the telescope's OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) instead of being the first element in a lens and thus open to the air and any blown grit in that air.

And somebody on this forum tsked tsked about you having *only* a 10-inch telescope? Wow! You can spend your entire life looking at objects you can see with a 6-inch telescope. Add another lifetime to use the 10" to its full capabilities. I wonder what size that person uses. There are diminishing returns with the use of larger telescopes unless what you are doing with it is taking hundreds or thousands of fast exposures a night and stiching them together with Registrax or similar software.

But for visual work you have to take in account the seeing conditions to a greater extent than in the above example. Once you get into the 4-inch or larger 'scopes, atmospheric waves come into play. That's why the superfine Questar is 3.5 inches in diameter. BTW, when you go out to see if the sky is cloudy, also look to see if the stars are twinkling. That's the time to read a book or watch a DVD! Magnifying a twinkling star is a waste of time. It won't stay still in your ocular (eyepiece); it will jump and bounce around. A friend of mine in Chicago caught himself looking up when he went into a closet! It wasn't clear so he didn't set up his 4" Unitron refractor. . . .

There are many nights over a year when you can set up and comfortably use a 4" telescope (at low power) that you can barely see anything with a 10" or larger telescope, due to seeing.

May your skies be clear and your streetlights terminal,
Donald

It would be better if I talked to you Over the phone. Here is my email address. Email me your phone number, and best time to call , I"m in the central time zone, if your willing. Ask for Joe Jr. I've been an amateur astronomer for about 15 years, had 6 different scopes. That email is jguyton58@yahoo.com

I think you need to first of all,align your finderscope with the telescope!!All these guys are right!!!You need to first of all, align the finder with the main body tube assembly.You can do this by checking out the instructions found in your owner's manual!!Once you've zeroed in,keep using a higher and higher magnification eyepiece to make sure your aiming is very accurate!!!