81 replies to this topic

[CHASLX200]

Just wanted to see if others have used insane high powers in fracts from 3 to 6" like over 100x per inch on a star image or Venus or the moon.

 

Had my C102 out last weekend in 8 seeing and jacked up the pow wow on M42 just on the trap at around 750x. All you see is the 4 stars flying tru the FOV but still shows perfect little balls.

 

Someone on here said it can't be done and yet has never even tried.  So i know others have done crazy stuff like this before other than myself.

 

Tell us your story.

Edited by CHASLX200, 16 February 2024 - 07:06 AM.

[gnowellsct]

Ultra high magnification works better if you have tracking. I tried 2100x on the moon in my c14.

A tree branch against a bright blue sky is an extremely stringent test of color correction in a refractor. I have pushed all my refractors to the limit in this way, but just once per refractor.

Greg N

Edited by gnowellsct, 16 February 2024 - 07:39 AM.

[deepwoods1]

A C102 at 400X! However, it was by accident. On Saturn no less. Forgot I had a barlow in as it just kept on taking magnification.

 

Great seeing is VERY RARE here in the North East, so deliberately doing so is a waste of time. You’re not even going to get close to using 50x per inch on most nights. I actually find watching stars scintillate mesmerizing and humorous. They look like they’re dancing. It’s all too common so I enjoy it instead of getting overly frustrated. 
 

Clear and STEADY skies……

[Illinois]

You seem love high freak power and I think C14 Edge with 2 mm eyepiece is good for you!  All my telescopes that I can use up to 50 power per inch.  If the night is great and clear then around 300 power is good enough for me. Higher power is reduce light is less details. Like you need very bright led light for high power in microscopes! 

[alnitak22]

Just wanted to see if others have used insane high powers in fracts from 3 to 6" like over 100x per inch on a star image or Venus or the moon.

 

Had my C102 out last weekend in 8 seeing and jacked up the pow wow on M42 just on the trap at around 750x. All you see is the 4 stars flying tru the FOV but still shows perfect little balls.

 

Someone on here said it can't be done and yet has never even tried.  So i know others have done crazy stuff like this before other than myself.

 

Tell us your story.

If you only see 4 stars in the Trap at 750x in your “freaky sharp C102”, well…there it is.

[astropgr]

A 5x Barlow on a scope with 6502mm FL will cause Jupiter to fill an aps sensor.... same scope with a 4.5mm on Jupiter fills your eyeball. Both are fuzzy even at 1 arc sec seeing. Lol

[CrazyPanda]

Got up to 2,500x for observing the Cat's Eye Nebula in my 14.7" once for giggles.

 

Hard to locate, but surprisingly easy to track by hand. Obviously no benefit to that kind of magnification in my scope, as good as the optics are.

 

Decided to go up to ~900x or so in my 130 EDT once on the Moon. The view remained VERY sharp, but chromatic aberration was so bad it was silly.

Edited by CrazyPanda, 16 February 2024 - 08:18 AM.

[Thomas A Davis]

Had a night of perfect seeing at the WSP in the Florida Keys in I believe 2006.  I had a good Celestron 9.25" SCT that I got some really good pictures of Saturn with that night.  For kicks, I took the scope up to 1200X.  Still sharp, with a razor sharp Cassini division.  Over-magnified, but not soft or blurred.  Best detail was about 400X.  More a test of perfect seeing than anything else, and it was perfect.  I used 600X on an AP180EDT F/9 with a Zeiss binoviewer with Zeiss Abbe Orthos on the moon.  It was the best view of the moon I ever had.  Looked like I was orbiting it.  The amount of etched detail was astonishing.  Best lens I ever saw. That was in NC, but a perfect night of seeing as well.  The 600X with the aP180EDT did not seem over-magnified.  

 

Edit:  I've added the Saturn image from that night with the C9.25.  Not sure of what magnification this would be, but pretty high.

 

Tom

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by Thomas A Davis, 16 February 2024 - 01:00 PM.

[Rutilus]

With my 6 inch f/8 achromat I often use powers up to 960x on tight Double stars.

With the planets I tend to stick to below 300x, unless it's Mars where I will use up to

460x on decent nights.

[Jon Isaacs]

I never use "freaky high powers."  I just use very high magnifications sometimes.  Nothing freaky about it, silly, yes, freaky no. 

 

I have used 2300x with a 130mm F/5 Newtonian on a GEM by stacking Barlows.  I could only see half of the Double-double but it was a wide split.

 

Other than that, the greatest magnification I have ever used is 1610 x with the 22 inch on the Saturn Nebula. The exit pupil was within reason, 0.35 mm but the nebula went by pretty fast.  

 

The most I have ever used in a refractor was 720x with the Orion Eon, the 5mm Nagler with two, 2x Barlows.  That was on a double star.  More often I would use 515x.  

 

Actually, looking through my photos, I found this image: 1056x on Venus with an 80mm to show the atmospheric dispersion:

 

 

Different scope, similar effect.

 

 

Of course, when it comes to silly, there is always this photo.  I just stacked every Barlow I owned and took a photo. 

 

 

Jon

 

 

[iKMN]

 

Decided to go up to ~900x or so in my 130 EDT once on the Moon. The view remained VERY sharp, but chromatic aberration was so bad it was silly.

I did something similar to this on the moon as well.  I had rainbows in some of the craters.  I think is was because the moon was low on the horizon.  

[Bomber Bob]

To get this Mars image from a 1964 60mm F15 Dept Store refractor, I used about 170x per inch.  After seeing the results, that Hiyoshi Lens could've gone higher:

 

 

Planetary Seeing at The Swamp is on par with CHAS in FL.  Those sessions used to be more common than for the past 6 winters.  WEDS night was one of them, and I got my "new" Tak TS-65S / 1000 to focus Jupiter to a sharp limb at 120x per inch (312x); bumped-up briefly to 400x, and Jupiter was a fuzzy striped ball, but the Galileans were pretty & perfect orbs.  It's not a useful view, but enjoyable.

 

1964 Monolux (Hiyoshi) 4380:

 

 

1972 Takahashi TS-65S / 1000 S-APO Triplet:

 

 

So, yes CHAS, on nights with 8 / 10 or better seeing, I've used up to 200x per inch on some objects - IF that scope has excellent to outstanding optics.  IOW:  All the IFs have to line up!

 

ALL 5 of my Taks are reliable 100x per inch refractors.  So is the Meade 826 Newt that I got from you - especially on doubles & clusters - Cluster Buster every time!  Glad you decided to part with it.

Edited by Bomber Bob, 16 February 2024 - 09:53 AM.

[John R.]

Tried it, went for 4X the diameter of the objective. Just hard to focus dim mush was all I ever got, showing me I had exceeded the limit for my modest achromatic refractors. 

[stevenwav]

Here's a story I just heard from an astro-friend who knows Steve O'Meara. He told me that Steve and he would observe together often, and Steve would always crank the power up to ultra-high levels and observe at this level for a long time. He would then pull it back. This was in MASSACHUSETTS complete with our jet stream. It was explained to me that Steve was identifying features that he could then pick out of the blobs he must have been seeing and look for them at the lower powers. Take it for what its worth, I heard this story last week. 

[Bomber Bob]

I use that extreme technique, too.

[RichA]

Just wanted to see if others have used insane high powers in fracts from 3 to 6" like over 100x per inch on a star image or Venus or the moon.

 

Had my C102 out last weekend in 8 seeing and jacked up the pow wow on M42 just on the trap at around 750x. All you see is the 4 stars flying tru the FOV but still shows perfect little balls.

 

Someone on here said it can't be done and yet has never even tried.  So i know others have done crazy stuff like this before other than myself.

 

Tell us your story.

I used 4000x on a C8 once.  Saturn was a giant green image at that magnification.

[alnitak22]

I used 4000x on a C8 once.  Saturn was a giant green image at that magnification.

That’s a lot of pow wow. Talk about empty mag wag! 

Edited by alnitak22, 16 February 2024 - 11:37 AM.

[GGK]

About 500X is all the higher I ever go in the 4” scope. That’s using a 2.5x Powermate with a 3mm Delite on a driven mount. The 0.2mm exit pupil is already getting smaller than I like.

I can go higher in the SCT of course, due to the larger exit pupil.

Gary

Edited by GGK, 16 February 2024 - 12:47 PM.

[Rick Runcie]

A couple of Summers ago my friend Albert and I did a shootout with few 4" refractors.

He had brought a 4-inch unitron one of the early ones and I had a Takahashi FC 100 DL and a TMB 92L.

The seeing was very good to excellent that evening and we got to push each refractor with the magnification.

The Unitron was sharp with minimal false color to about 365x. Not bad for an achromat

The TMB was good to about 300x before the image started to soften.

The Takahashi seemed to have no limit with magnification.

I was observing Jupiter at 500x and could still see color in the bands as well as festoons and small ovals. The image was very sharp with no degradation whatsoever.

Just for the heck of it I went as high as I could go with my existing eyepieces and barlow which was 600x. The image still was sharp though somewhat dimmed and it was now in like black and white the bands were grayish but the same amount of detail was visible just dimmer.

That magnification is Extreme and I don't usually go over 300X with that telescope but at that magnification it's still very vibrant the colors on the planets.

The only other extreme magnification I ever used was 1000x on my 20" dob to view the Ring nebula. That was many years ago and the ring was directly overhead. I remember I had to put it outside the field of view just to get a good look at it cuz it would whiz through the field of view pretty quickly.

I routinely though use over 600x on my 10-in reflector with a thin quart Zambuto mirror to look at planetary nebula on nights of better seeing.

I really dont consider these extreme or crazy high magnifications but likely more what the seeing alows on above average nights.

Best regards, Richard

Edited by Rick Runcie, 16 February 2024 - 03:37 PM.

[Alterf]

These are good stories. 

 

I upped the magnification on my SW80ED to 480x on Antares once and watched in wonder as the little blue secondary appeared next to the bright red star.

 

With my CFF 290mm Classical Cass, I can do 1,500x usefully on double stars.

 

Val

[scout]

I only use crazy high powers on tight double stars in my refractor.

 

I don't like washed out and fuzzy super high powers on planets and the Moon. When the seeing is great, I'll pump up the power out of curiosity, but I prefer the crisper views and more saturated colors of moderately-high powers.

 

The Moon looks best with dark, rich shadows and doesn't need very high magnification. But Saturn looked really sharp at almost 400x in my 4" apo one night a few months ago.

Edited by scout, 16 February 2024 - 04:04 PM.

[Mike Q]

I dont ever get good enough skies to get as crazy as most of you.  The highest i have ever gone is 450x on Saturn with my 10 inch dob.  I am having a good night if i can hit 200x

[Astrojensen]

I very rarely use more than 200x or so on the planets with either my 6" APM ED or my Zeiss Meniscas 150, but on double stars and tiny planetary nebulae, I frequently go to much higher magnifications. 5-600x on doubles is quite common, especially in summer, during a spell of good seeing. A couple of years ago, I observed Albireo at nearly 1,000x on the APM152, during a magic moment of superb seeing, and it was a textbook doble star view. Last year, I used 958x on NGC 6543. See sketch below.  

 

The highest I've ever used was 2,000x, also on NGC 6543, with the C8 I once had. The nebula filled the field of view of the 4mm ortho (+4x Barlow). The nebula was a bit dim, but by no means invisible. The central star was very obvious. 

 

I've occasionally observed the Moon at 420x (2mm eyepiece) in my 63mm Zeiss. The image remains surprisingly good, despite being dim. Naturally, you don't see any more details, but as Chas says, it's good fun.

 

 

Meniscas 150/2250, July 21st, 2023, 4.7mm ES82 + 2x Barlow (958x)

 

 

Clear skies!

Thomas, Denmark 

Edited by Astrojensen, 16 February 2024 - 04:26 PM.

[SandyHouTex]

Had a night of perfect seeing at the WSP in the Florida Keys in I believe 2006.  I had a good Celestron 9.25" SCT that I got some really good pictures of Saturn with that night.  For kicks, I took the scope up to 1200X.  Still sharp, with a razor sharp Cassini division.  Over-magnified, but not soft or blurred.  Best detail was about 400X.  More a test of perfect seeing than anything else, and it was perfect.  I used 600X on an AP180EDT F/9 with a Zeiss binoviewer with Zeiss Abbe Orthos on the moon.  It was the best view of the moon I ever had.  Looked like I was orbiting it.  The amount of etched detail was astonishing.  Best lens I ever saw. That was in NC, but a perfect night of seeing as well.  The 600X with the aP180EDT did not seem over-magnified.  

 

Edit:  I've added the Saturn image from that night with the C9.25.  Not sure of what magnification this would be, but pretty high.

 

Tom

Nice.

[CHASLX200]

Ultra high magnification works better if you have tracking. I tried 2100x on the moon in my c14.

A tree branch against a bright blue sky is an extremely stringent test of color correction in a refractor. I have pushed all my refractors to the limit in this way, but just once per refractor.

Greg N

Ouch!  I never been that high. I think 1150x was the most for me on a once in a life time nite in Feb of 2001 on a nite the seeing went away and was like being in space with a Zambuto 14.5" Starmaster. Jup and Sat never moved a wink and my maxed out my eyepiece barlow combo. It was nuts.

Edited by CHASLX200, 16 February 2024 - 07:23 PM.