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My 3 year old needs new eyepieces - Please help


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Dear SGL.

I'm hoping a few of you may be able to help me. 

In July my daughter turned 3. After asking her many times what she would like for her birthday i decided to give into her wishes and by her a telescope. It was the only thing she ever asked for and said she " just wants to watch the stars with her daddy" so how could i resist. I looked at some very cheap scopes but kept reading lots of bad reviews. I decided that as i have also wanted to get into astronomy i would up the budget slightly and let us have a joint present. I hope this could be an interest we can share and grow for many years. I read lots of good reviews about Orion and decided on an Orion SkyScanner 100mm TableTop Reflector. It seemed like a good first telescope .

So far we have had a few evenings outside before bedtime and she is thoroughly enjoying astronomy. The moon is her current favourite thing to see but she keeps pointing out pictures in her astronomy book that she would like to see. Mainly planets and clusters. 

The issue i have is that she is struggling to see through the eyepiece. Its very hit or miss so i though i would look for some new eyepieces with better eye relief. I have read lots of reviews and now feel more confused than when i started. 

Could you guys please take 2 minutes to recommend some eyepieces that help her see and can upgrade our viewing. I was looking to buy a eyepiece kit to give us a few options but i wasn't sure what to buy. Alternatively if you could point me in the direction of a couple of eyepieces and a barlow lens that we could use i would be very grateful. 

I know that sometimes you get what you pay for but  i cant really afford hundreds of pounds for a set but if we could get what we needed for around £200 then i could probably stretch to that. After all i hope it will be a purchase that could last a long time.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Regards

Lee ( And Poppy )

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Hi, congrats on your new scope! Plossl eyepieces are generally good value for money - £20 - £30. I guess your daughters problem is more with the 10mm ep? Celestron xcels are pretty good for eye relief http://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-x-cel-lx-eyepiece.html

Maybe just replace the 10mm first. I don't know how far you can push the magnification with that scope.

However that might not actually be her problem.

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Hi

The telescope is the same as the heritage 100p by skywatcher which might have a few posts on it.

I guess around £50 an eyepiece will be about the cost to spend so well inside budget :-)

If not already found stellarium is a great free software and a book to help what is in the sky this month as you give a £ I assume you are in the UK. Turn Left at Orion.

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Hi Lee,

I agree with John - Plossls are pretty ubiquitous, but for a good reason - the optical design makes for a nice all-round eyepiece.

Rather than recommend a particular make or focal length, let me make an observation - when I have visitors in my observatory, I tend to find that eyepieces with rubber eye cups are the ones they find easiest to use, at least if they are not spectacle wearers. The rubber eye cup gives them something to "fit" in the eye and guides the positioning of the eye, whereas non-cupped eyepieces, where you often don't make contact with your eye, can be more tricky. 

So I suggest that going for an eyepiece with an eyecup might help Poppy get the best view she can.

Nigel

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Hi Joseki. The main thing she is struggling with is keeping her eye open when getting close to the eyepiece. so the better the eye relief the easier im hoping it will be for her to see. 

Hi White Dwarf. We are in bognor regis, west sussex. Thank you for the advice. We did get some software with the telescope that we are having fun with but will take a look a stellarium. 

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If your daughter is struggling with keeping her eye still, an eyepiece with a twist up eyecup might be a good idea. You have a very short focal length scope (f4), so to avoid distortion at the edge of the fov you will need high quality eyepieces which are usually expensive.

Also think about getting a drum stool or ironing stool, good atlas, collimator and a red light.

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Practise a bit more, especially during the day. Use an eyepiece which doesn't have too much eye relief. 

Point the scope to a building. Together, look at the eyepiece from a half a metre or so. Ask the girl if she sees the point of light in it. Then ask her to move closer to the eyepiece while keeping track of the point of light. When she gets close enough she'll see the building. Ask her to make an O with her thumb and index finger and look through that. If the eye relief is short enough this will give her tactile information of how her eye needs to be placed with respect to the eyepiece.

This will allow her to develop a feel for the eyepiece.

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Hi Lee, I would consider something like a BST Starguider eyepiece. They are often thought of as being the best all round eyepiece below 50 pounds. They have generous eye relief, a twist up rubber eyecup, and a generous 60 degree field of view.

I've tested them side by side with the slightly more expensive Celestron Xcel-lx's and found the BST's to be a bit more comfy to use. I somtimes got blackouts with the Xcel's if my eye position wasn't quite right, otherwise optically they were on par.

I have a feeling that BST's would be a better fit for a childs eye socket also.

http://www.365astronomy.com/8mm-BST-Explorer-ED-Eyepiece.html

An 8mm for example would give you 50x mag, and the 5mm would give 80x. I wouldn't push the mag too much higher than this if you want to keep things nice and sharp.

hope this helps :)

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You might consider a decent 8mm - 24MM Zoom eyepiece. These will cover a good range of magnification, and be FUN to use for a 3 year-old (including the 3 year-old in all of us!). Here's an example:

http://www.tringastro.co.uk/celestron-zoom-eyepiece-124-in---8-24mm-1135-p.asp

The Celestron 8 - 24mm Zoom is a good one - and well within your stated budget. And it does the work of several eyepieces for the price of one. And it has a twist-up rubber eye-guard which will fit anyone's eye, while providing 15mm to 18mm eye-relief. Which is quite nice - even for eye-glass wearer's.

Happy Birthday!

Dave

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Hi Lee,

I've a 32 mm Meade Plossl that I don't need anymore, is a wide field and one of the few eyepiece I don't need to remove my glasses to use. Please message me your address and I'll pop it into a Jiffy bag for you, it's about 4 years old and had lots of use, but is in good condition.

Best,

Chris

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Congratulations on your new 'scope!

First off though, I think your daughter is doing a fab job to see anything at the tender age of 3!

Had you thought of getting her an eye patch?! :D

It should help with getting the correct eye over the eye piece and not having to worry about the other.

The Vixen NPL eyepieces are also highly rated. 

The problem with any plossl is that as the focal length reduces, so does the eye relief.

You can get around this by sticking to the longer focal length eye pieces and getting a 2x Barlow lens to go with them which will double the focal length and so effectively double the magnification.

Or, as Dave has suggested, a zoom eye piece might be a good idea.

Apparently, the Seben 8-24mm zoom is good and cheap (make sure it's the 8-24 though!).

Cheers

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Congratulations on your new 'scope!

First off though, I think your daughter is doing a fab job to see anything at the tender age of 3!

Had you thought of getting her an eye patch?! :D

It should help with getting the correct eye over the eye piece and not having to worry about the other.

The Vixen NPL eyepieces are also highly rated.

The problem with any plossl is that as the focal length reduces, so does the eye relief.

You can get around this by sticking to the longer focal length eye pieces and getting a 2x Barlow lens to go with them which will double the focal length and so effectively double the magnification.

Or, as Dave has suggested, a zoom eye piece might be a good idea.

Apparently, the Seben 8-24mm zoom is good and cheap (make sure it's the 8-24 though!).

Cheers

I think the Seben is recommended as being good in slow scopes, f10 or more. I'm sure it would struggle at f4.

As said, plossls have tight eye relief at short focal lengths so will not be the answer. NPLs are the same.

The BST Starguiders sound like a good bet as the eye relief is longer. They have a good reputation

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I would keep well away from the sets. The scope won't support very high magnification so there's no need for anything too short (and 'nudging' a Dob becomes hard work at high powers anyway.) One good one would be my first step.

Another vote for the eyepatch from me.

Olly

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