Saturn's rings looked like a blurry blob through my $40 telescope last night

Got a Celestron FirstScope last Christmas and kept putting off using it. Finally dragged it out to my backyard in Phoenix around 10pm. Spent 20 minutes trying to focus on Saturn and all I got was a smeared dot with a hint of something around it. My neighbor's kid has the same scope and his photos online look way better. Is it just my terrible eyesight or do these cheap scopes need some kind of trick to get them working right? Anyone else had this problem with a low end scope?

3 comments

3 Comments

martin.jamie1mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah the thing with cheaper scopes is they really punish tiny mistakes. It's like using a Bluetooth speaker in a noisy room vs a nice pair of headphones. The cheap scope needs everything perfect. Perfect collimation, perfect focus, perfect atmospheric conditions. I've noticed this pattern with a lot of hobby gear. Cheap stuff works but only if you do everything right. Expensive stuff just works even when you mess up. Your neighbor might have better skies or just got lucky with conditions. Phoenix has a lot of heat haze coming off the ground at night which makes things worse.

mason7981mo ago

Dude, you just described my entire first year with my cheapo 6 inch Dob. It drove me crazy because I'd get these amazing views one night and then nothing the next, and I thought I was doing something wrong. Turns out, yeah, the collimation was off by a hair or there was just a little bit of moisture in the air. I swear, on a perfect summer night with zero clouds and dead calm air, I could see the bands on Jupiter. But if the wind even slightly picked up, it was just a blurry mess. Have you ever tried pushing the focuser on a cheap scope and had the whole image shake for five seconds? That's my life.

paige_martin5d ago

Oh man, the five second shake after touching the focuser, that's way too real.