Telescope Reviews: Re: My new toy

Welcome to Cloudy Nights! You started of with a whole lot of scope.

One thing you'll want to do is allign your finder. Start with your 40mm eyepiece, and pick a ground based target miles away. Center your finder. Swap in your 8mm eyepiece, and repeat.

The 40m eyepiece provides about .8° @ 50X. A 20mm eyepiece fills the field of view, about .5° @ 100X with the moon. A 25mm @ 80X leaves the moon a little elbow room. The 8mm delivers about .2°, but @ 250X. Something in the 15mm to 10mm range, 133-200X might have worked, though. Your scope may not have cooled sufficiently close to the ambient temperature to perform well. The Atmosphere may not have been stable enough either, especially if Jupiter was close to the horizon.

Some eyepieces, especially those with little eye relief like the 8mm are tough to look through. It's one reason why so many people spend a bit more on some eyepieces, and Barlows. A 2X Barlowed 25mm eyepiece providing .32° @ 160X probably would have looked better, and been easier to view besides. Fortunately, with your scope's f/10 optics, less expensive eyepieces are likely to perform better than they would in my f/5 Dob.

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John "Have eyepiece - will travel!"

8" f/5 Dob w/2.14" sec in a 12" alum tube 'The Mortar' - w/PCorr 2° TFoV @ 36.5X ~70% illum *NICE*
Typical eyepieces: 32 Burg, 24 Pan, 20T5, 5-8 SW, Others ALL 2": Pcorr, 2X PwrMt, Ast H-b, Lum UHC + OIII
60mm $50 Walmart Special in training - aka "Backpack Observatory"
Minolta Activa 12x50 , Steiner 15X80

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