Posts Made By: Art Monzon

Hi Guys,

New to the forum and stargazing and had a quick question. Finally was able to take out the Meade 12" for some stargazing in a decently dark environment (30 min outside a main city) and was blown away by the views offered by the 20mm - 40mm eyepieces. But when I switched to anything with more magnification, like the 15mm or 10mm I can never seem to get the focus "just right" as the image gets that "bloom" no matter how fine I tune to focuser. Even when I focus just right, the image seems very dark. 

I hope this is a simple solution as I was very confused how it seemed that I got better and more clear resolution out of the 20mm+ than the higher magnifications. 

Viewing conditions on both nights were during a new moon phase, and on a very clear night. Thank you for any help!

Thank you for the response! I was actually using the cleardarksky website before going out and basically everything was good EXCEPT for the humidity. I had left the telescope outside to acclimate to the temperature for about 3 hours before observing. So humidity can really mess up high magnification like that? 

Thank you, I'll check it out tonight