Mars Opposition (22 May 2016)

Managed a few frames last night, shooting with my 480mm refactor with 4x TeleVue PowerMate. This is my first image of Mars with surface detail!!!

Congratulation!! Which scope did you use ? First one this year I've seen with detail .

Wow, very nice.

This was shot with my Orion ED80T CF. Want to also try with my Orion StarMax 90mm TableTop Maksutov-Cassegrain, if I can find a way to mount the 4x TeleView (2") into the 1.25" ... would give me an effective 5000mm focal length, as opposed to th ED80's 1920mm ... and yes, I have focal length envy, hahaha.

Never really gone after the planets before, so much fun though!!!

legoman_iac wrote in post #18016515
if I can find a way to mount the 4x TeleView (2") into the 1.25" ... would give me an effective 5000mm focal length, as opposed to th ED80's 1920mm ... and yes, I have focal length envy, hahaha.

Would this be what you are looking for?
http://www.amazon.com …o+2+inch+eyepie​ce+adapter

legoman_iac wrote in post #18016515
This was shot with my Orion ED80T CF. Want to also try with my Orion StarMax 90mm TableTop Maksutov-Cassegrain, if I can find a way to mount the 4x TeleView (2") into the 1.25" ... would give me an effective 5000mm focal length, as opposed to th ED80's 1920mm ... and yes, I have focal length envy, hahaha.

Never really gone after the planets before, so much fun though!!!

Good luck but personally I think you would be disappointed in the outcome image. Scopes depending the actual size are made to handle a certain amount of power effectively with a decent focus. Way over powering the scope with power mates or Barlows will degrade images to a certain point that will make them look soft or not sharp . The proper setup for you to use tho is with a 2" focuser and 2" diagonal and 2"EP . ONLY then will a power mate help in increasing the object size in the EP . The adapter mentioned from Amazon will only hender your viewing to a small FOV . Does your scope use a 2" focuser ?

Check this out on Telescope Power :

http://www.telescope.c​om …Magnification/p​/99813.uts

How Much Power is Enough?
For large objects a low-power (long focal length) eyepiece may be all you want because any higher power will not allow you to see the whole object in the field of view. For smaller objects the general guideline is to use higher power only if it allows you to see more detail. If switching to a higher-power eyepiece results in a loss of visible detail, go back to lower magnification.

The theoretical limit of useful magnification for a telescope is 50 or 60 times the telescope’s aperture in inches, or two times the aperture in millimeters. So, for a 60mm refractor, the maximum useful power is 120x (i.e., 120 times the magnification of the naked eye). Higher magnification is pointless, because the image seen in the eyepiece will only be dim and fuzzy.

As a practical matter, it is a rare night when the turbulence in the atmosphere (the "seeing") allows good images at more than 200x to 300x even with larger amateur telescopes, and there are many nights when even 150x is iffy. But 150x is too high a power for many faint deep-sky objects, most of which are more easily seen at magnifications of 50x to 100x. And for the largest deep-sky denizens you’ll want the lowest power possible, all the way down to 15x or 20x if your scope can go that low. Those ads for inexpensive telescopes that claim 475x power (or more!) are patently fraudulent! All you would ever see at that power would be a dim, blurry smudge.

For planets, high power is desirable. Even giant Jupiter is a small disk in the eyepiece, so for planets the lowest useful magnification is 100x or so, and the maximum is whatever the atmosphere and your telescope will allow. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus are all bright enough that you can push the power fairly high without the image becoming too dim. But as always, increase magnification only if it reveals more detail; anything more than that is not useful and actually degrades the image.

Bear in mind, as well, that the goal of astronomy is not just to examine the smallest objects, but also to enjoy the grand sweep of the heavens. Once in a while drop in the low-power eyepiece and just sweep the sky slowly, taking in the sights at random.

The experience can indeed be magical.

legoman_iac wrote in post #18016515
This was shot with my Orion ED80T CF. Want to also try with my Orion StarMax 90mm TableTop Maksutov-Cassegrain, if I can find a way to mount the 4x TeleView (2") into the 1.25" ... would give me an effective 5000mm focal length, as opposed to th ED80's 1920mm ... and yes, I have focal length envy, hahaha.

Never really gone after the planets before, so much fun though!!!

You have a 2" focuser , all you need is a 2" diagonal from Orion .

http://www.telescope.c​om …onal/c/3/sc/45/​p/8727.uts

You could also get a 2" camera adapter for imaging with your 50D :

http://www.telescope.c​om …-1/c/4/sc/62/p/115062.u​ts

Howdy all,

Managed a few pics Saturday night. I wasn't expecting great results with the 4x on the muk-cass, but was keen to see how it actually worked.

Focus was impossible for me as the orion table top had a single speed focuser, anyway, results below:

Mars, 4x with Orion 1250mm Mak Cass (effectively 5000mm focal length):

I think you did a great job ! Mars is a very hard planet to image cause of the brightness . The easiest way tho is with video and then stacking the frames in a program like Registax or DSS . Just a short burst of video can produce 200 or more frames to stack but it's best to let the program discard the bad frames . But with what you do have be proud of cause like I say it's a hard planet to image !

Thanks Celestron, am proud of it ... though think I can probably push it a little more with my refactor. Also, these are about 70 subs each stacked. Yet to work how to shoot video as I'm using canin 50Ds, heard of magic lantern but yet to take the plunge.

legoman_iac wrote in post #18023415
Yet to work how to shoot video as I'm using canin 50Ds, heard of magic lantern but yet to take the plunge.

Magic Lantern is pretty easy to install on the 50D, besides video it gives you lots of other great features like focus peaking for one.
https://www.youtube.co​m …+magic+lantern+​on+the+50D