My NexStar 5SE says it has found planets. When I try to look @ them I see nothing. My eyepieces are a 25 mm, a zoom w/ settings ranging from 24mm to 8mm, and a 5 mm What am I doing wrong?

That scope came with a 25 mm and a 10 mm eyepiece, which will give about a x40 and a x100 magnification respectively. If the seeing is good (clear sky, not dusty or windy, and the planet not too low (at least 30 deg up from the horizon) you should get a reasonable view of the planets, with these ep's

If you do not have any ep's you could buy 2 or 3 plossl type ep's (nothing more expensive is justified) of say 10 mm, 25 mm, and 32 mm. It looks like it takes ep's with a 1.25" barrel.

The theoretical limiting power of your scope is about x 220, which is about a 4 mm eyepiece, but at that extreme you will find the viewing object is dim, fuzzy, hard to get into the field of view, hard to focus, and totally frustrating.

Sadly this scope is just not a very good one, sorry to sound elitist. One of the issues will be that of collimation (optical alignment). You can never properly focus the scope unless it is collimated. Reflector scopes (with a mirror) all have this difficulty. You can tell if it is collimated with a star test

http://garyseronik.com/no-tools-telescope-collimation/

There should be 3 screws on the bottom end of the scope, where the mirror is. These are the collimation screws. Have somebody screw these in and out while you look through the ep. Remember you can only assess the collimation when the defocussed star image is right in the middle of your view.
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Hi, I can see you'r statring a interesting journey in amateur astronomy. Which can be really amazing but also disappointing, because usually people are expecting too much (specially after viewing beautiful astronomy pictures on internet).

Before we go back to your question lets go over some basics here:

Your telescope has a F10 aperture (Focal lenght / Diameter).
So to be able to see the maximum amount of details from it, the smallest eyepiece you need is a 10mm (eyepiece mm = to f number of thetelescope).

Then it's easy to find the maximum useful magnification:
700mm (focal lenght) / 10mm (eyepiece) = 70x

Ok but why does the manufacturer say that it can be at a max of 170x... they are not really lying, if you get a smaller eyepiece it will make the image bigger but will show no additional details than a 10mm one. But the image being bigger it can make details easier to see.

That for the questions about magnification an image quality.

The more pieces you put between you eye and the telescope mirror, the dimmer and less contrasty the image will be. Especially after you go higher that the maximum useful magnification.

Hope this helps. And enjoy wathching the stars and planets, it is a always a beautiful sight.

What eye piece (EP) are you using? It is much better to start off with a low power eyepiece (say a 25mm - the higher the mm on the EP the lower the power) as a high power EP (say a 10mm) will give a very narrow field of view and will be much more difficult to get things into focus.


Try focusing on a terrestrial object, like a tree top, to get the hang of the focuser and then try the moon. I have an 8SE and it can be fairly finicky on the focus until used to it.



Most of the stars and planets will be little more than dots. You should be able to make out the phases of Venus, the bands on Jupiter and some of its moons and the rings of Saturn, but if you are expecting Hubble type images then sorry to disappoint you.


There are also times when the skies appear clear but due to "seeing" conditions, sharp focus is not possible. Remember we are looking through a few kilometres of moving air.

Try joining http://www.astronomyforum.net They are a friendly and helpful group.

During the day, point the telescope at a part of the landscape about 100 yards away. Use the lowest power eyepiece (highest number) in the focal tube. Center the landscape object in the telescope. Align the finder scope so that it points exactly where the main telescope is. At night, leave the scope out to reach thermal equilibrium (about an hour). Point the finder at the moon. The moon should be in the main scope also. Practice finding the moon before you start on the planets Once you are comfortable with the moon and planets, you can go for the deep sky objects

That is a good telescope. I am unsure about what adjustments you are trying out, so please excuse me if I get too basic here:

The focus adjustment will not give you an enlargement, it only brings objects to a sharp image. I trust that is OK for you.

To gain an enlargement of something, you must use a different eyepiece with a shorter focal length, say from 25mm to 12mm. The magnification you will get is the focal length of your scope, 2032mm, divided by the focal length of the eyepiece, say 2032/25, giving you magnification of x81 with that eyepiece.

There is a practical limit to this, which for your scope is about x400, (an eyepiece of 5mm) in excellent conditions at the top of a mountain. For terrible seeing from a suburban backyard, it will be say half that, x200, or an eyepiece of 10mm. You will get the best viewing with a magnification of say x150 at the most, or an eyepiece of 15mm. Less is more.

Then, you will not ever see the true disk of a star with that scope, they are too far away. You will however magnify the image of a planet, star cluster, nebula, or binary star pair. Sometimes though that will be at the cost of image clarity, it depends on where you are at the time.

Stars will always appear as points. It is not possible to magnify them enough to see them as disks because they are all extremely far away. A telescope will however show you stars and other objects that are too dim to see with the naked eye.

You will be able to see the planets as disks, and even features on the planets, such as the bands on Jupiter, the rings of Saturn and the phases of Venus, and also moons around some planets. There are other objects that will show more detail when magnified, such as nebula. You will be able to see a lot of craters and other detail on the Moon.

Your problem is simply that you are not pointing the telescope at these objects. This seems to be one of those telescopes that "automatically" finds objects, but these so called "go to" scopes only do this when they are set up properly. I can't say what step(s) you have missed, but clearly even if the scope thinks it is pointed at the moon, if you can't see the moon, it is NOT pointed there. The Moon will fill the field of view even with the least powerful eyepiece. If you are seeing stars as points, then the eyepiece is focussed and working properly.

You must set TIME, DATE, and SITE-- probably does not know your actual location. Read the manual and perform all of the setup procedures.

Some of these have a "starting position" again read the manual and make sure you are in the "home" position before you start the alignment. Read my TIP on my profile page about GOTO telescopes, and join the NEXSTAR forum on www.cloudynights.com

That all depends on what telescope it is, but generally you line it up with whatever you are trying to view, then you start with the biggest eyepiece you have (say you have a 9mm, 12mm, and 24mm; you should always start off with the 24mm) then gradually bring the mm size til u get to your lowest or however far you need to zoom into

That all depends on what telescope it is, but generally you line it up with whatever you are trying to view, then you start with the biggest eyepiece you have (say you have a 9mm, 12mm, and 24mm; you should always start off with the 24mm) then gradually bring the mm size til u get to your lowest or however far you need to zoom into

you use eyepieces to zoom in and out. lower mm eyepieces like a 6mm will have a high magnification. and a high mm eyepiece will have a lower magnification.