After playing around with a Celestron 70AZ (a gift) and enjoying some lunar viewing, I went ahead and ordered a Heritage 150p, a red headlamp and a copy of Turn Left at Orion to take this hobby to a step higher level. I purchased a Celestron Xcel-LX in 12mm for my refractor and am very happy with how it performed. It was a huge improvement from the 10mm eyepiece that came with the 70AZ and I am looking forward to using it with the new Heritage 150p.
I want to get a couple more eyepieces for the new scope and am leaning towards staying with the Xcel-LX as they suit my budget and I have seen them recommended online for my scope. My first question is regarding reaching higher magnifications for lunar and planetary viewing. I would like to achieve magnifications of 150x or even higher. 150x is achieved with 5mm EP and has exit pupil of 1mm by my calculations. With a fast F5 scope like the Heritage 150p, can I use a Barlow 2x effectively? Is the weight too much for the small scope? The Barlow weighs 157 grams and the 9mm weighs 180 grams, so total of 337 grams.
If the weight is not an issue, would I be better off with buying a Barlow 2x and a Xcel-LX 9mm, vs a Xcel-LX 5mm? Obviously the Barlow (if practical) could be used with my current 12mm Xcel-LX as well.
One more eyepiece question is in regards to wide field viewing of some DSOs. I live in a Bortle class 4 area on a farm so I have pretty good opportunities to view DSOs. What EP would be a good choice for viewing DSOs with a Heritage 150p?
Thanks in advance for your help everyone.