I really need some good advice! I got my Orion SkyQuest XT10 yesterday. Why didnt

[blackhole1027]

jupiter show any detail? PLZ Why didnt jupiter show any color detail on it. It was just a yellow disk and its 4 moons. I Dont understand why I cant see the brown bands & the ("red Spot" or Storm) ? I used a 20mm, a 10mm & a 6.3mm eyepeice & still no detail. I even used a yellow filter & no good detail. Whats wrong?? Everybody told me that a 10in is plenty to see detail on Jupiter. I mean Saturn & the moon is breath taking. I havent seen any deep sky objects yet either. What am I doing wrong?? What do I need to do to see the brown bands & the storm on jupiter? What deep sky objects can I See & how do I See them? Also I really dont know how to read a star chart yet. Astronomy has been a hobby of mine for almost a year. The SkyQuest XT10 came with a deepsky 600 map. Its like a big star chart I guess. What is the best way to learn my way around the night sky. How do I know where to look & when to look for DSO? I really need some help because so far the answers i get r not helping. Plz give me some good advice...Thanks

 

[Geoff G]

There are several reasons why Jupiter may not show much detail. First of all, your telescope may need collimation: adjustment of the alignment of its mirrors. Secondly, Jupiter is still quite far from the Earth, and its detail may be hard to see for that reason; it's also low in the sky so its detail is often masked by turbulence in our own atmosphere. How high was Jupiter in the sky when you tried observing it? It needs to be at least 15° above the horizon to begin to show detail. Thirdly, even at the best of times, the detail in Jupiter's cloud belts is low contrast (compared to Saturn and the Moon) and requires training of your eye to see. I've been observing Jupiter for over fifty years, yet every year I find the same thing: when I first start to observe it, I can see hardly any detail, and it's only after I've spent several hours looking at it that I begin to see the fine detail again.

You need to slow down and spend some _time_ looking at objects like Jupiter. Our eyes are not accustomed to looking at faint objects (like deep sky objects) and low contrast objects (like Jupiter's cloud belts), and need to be trained. Making pencil sketches of what you see is a good way to train your eyes. Your telescope is an _excellent_ one, capable of giving you fine views of a wide variety of astronomical objects, BUT you need to train your eye to detect them, and that takes time and patience.