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Bought a $40 'planetary' eyepiece kit off Amazon and Jupiter looked like a fuzzball
I've been using my Celestron 130EQ from my driveway in Tucson for about 8 months and finally wanted to see Jupiter's bands, so I grabbed one of those cheap 6mm eyepiece kits online. First clear night I pointed it at Jupiter and all I got was a bright blob with maybe one faint stripe if I squinted, nothing like the photos. Turns out the 6mm was pushing my scope to 216x, way past what it can handle on an average night here, and the seeing was just too mushy. I dropped back to my 10mm with a 2x barlow on a steadier night and suddenly there were two clear cloud belts and all four moons. Anyone else run into the magnification trap where the cheap high power eyepiece is actually making things worse?
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gavin_reed5d ago
Been there, man. I pushed my little 114mm up to 200x one night and got the same fuzzy mess, then backed off to around 100x and the bands finally showed up. Staying under 50x per inch of aperture on most nights beats any cheap eyepiece every time.
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