# Actual Astronomy - Telescope Powers

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-365-days-of-astronomy-500745/actual-astronomy-telescope-powers
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-365-days-of-astronomy-500745/actual-astronomy-telescope-powers.md
Podcast: [The 365 Days of Astronomy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-365-days-of-astronomy-500745)
Published: 2026-06-18T11:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/astro365/20260618-365DoA.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/astro365/20260618-365DoA.mp3?dest-id=4378
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-365-days-of-astronomy-500745/episodes/actual-astronomy-telescope-powers
Duration seconds: 3741

## Resource

Hosted by Chris Beckett & Shane Ludtke , two amateur astronomers in Saskatchewan who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and showing the public views through their telescopes. actualastronomy@gmail.com This month we talk about the full range of telescopic magnification powers from Low, Medium to High and how to achieve them using exit pupil. Topics include using exit pupil as a guide to power and how to successfully use high powers. To recap Exit Pupils and Eyepieces: We have High, Medium and Low powers, - Low Power is in the Exit Pupil Range 2-4mm, so on my 180mm f6 that's 12-24mm eyepieces giving 45x-90x - Medium Power is around 1.5mm Exit pupils, so a 9mm for my scope for 120x - High equates to about a 0.5mm Exit pupil which for an F6 scope that would be a 3mm which on my 180mm would give 360x In addition to these we have RFT or very low power for me I use my 40mm and 32mm for 27-35x and Ultra-high which is anything above 0.5mm. Careful in going to low as beyond 6-7mm exit pupils the pupil will cut into the light path. The most favored eyepiece exit pupils are those in the 1.5-3mm range for galaxies, globular clusters. This is where the eye performs best under low light conditions and these magnifications help reduce the sky brightness without reducing the object brightness to the same extent,,,thus making such objects more visible. This is why I use my 17mm, 12.5, 12, 10mm's the most when making observations of these targets. For low power wide field nothing beats the 40mm XW which gives me a 2.5TFOV and 27x and I use my 5mm XW lots on the planets and Moon. Shane do you have any high power eyepieces? What is the highest power you've successfully used? What are some of the challenges with using high powers? My introduction to using high power came by accident. I wanted…

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## Transcript

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