John

I don't think I could help ending up interested in space and astronomy. I was 9 when Apollo 11 made the 1st moon landing and had followed the preparatory and later missions with avid interest. My parents were not particularly interested in those subjects themselves but were very aware of the significance of what was unfolding so ensured that my brother and I had a good supply of newspaper and magazine articles, plastic model kits etc and were able to watch much of the TV coverage.

Actually the "hit" rate from their efforts was just 50% because my brother is not all that interested these days

I suppose there were a lot of folks who lived through the 1965-75 period relatively unaware of these momentus space-related events though 

I have always been interested in nature, wildlife, geology and the natural world though so I guess space and astronomy are an extension of that.

Pseonally I think the the best pure optical quality eyepieces that can be purchased for £100 or less would be Baader Classic Orthoscopics in the 18mm and 10mm focal lengths. These are actually £50 apiece.

They don't have long eye relief (orthos don't) and their field of view is limited (like other orthos and plossls) to 45-50 degrees but in terms of pure optical performance I think you would need to spend a lot more than £100 to beat them.

If you want a wider field of view and / or longer eye relief (eg: if you wear glasses when observing) then other options will be preferable such as the BST Starguider range or the Vixen SLV range. 

Are you looking to replace the focal lengths of the stock eyepieces that came with the scope or add new focal lengths ?

Another option would be the Baader 8-24mm zoom. It's not perfect and you would probably want to invest in couple of other eyepieces to compliment it at low power (the zoom field of view is quite narrow at the 24mm end) and for high powers, say, a 6mm. The Baader zoom covers the middle ranges of observing magnifications pretty well and is a comfortable eyepiece to use with pretty good optical performance.

Now prepare yourself for a host of other good suggestions as well

7 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Same here in Canada, my local telescope shop said they have over a hundred thousand dollars worth of orders waiting to be shipped. Called several other scope shops and they say their showrooms usually loaded with used scopes are bare and orders are through the roof. It makes me wonder about the used market after Covid, there will be so many people who bought telescopes on impulse which will end up on the market once everyone is back to their daily routine. Save for us few dedicated amateurs, there are certainly many who have taken up the hobby out of boredom which they’ll forget about post Covid. That being said, if the issue is a supply chain shortage mostly then maybe there areas many new amateur astronomers as I think and it’s just a replenishment issue at store level.

I think the pre-owned market will be awash with equipment in a couple of months time.

19 minutes ago, tripleped said:

Interesting and informative discussion. My question is with the terrible skies where I live (Bortle  8 ) and even though I have a 10” DOB how much can I really expect from either of these filters mentioned? Often the Amazon descriptions talk about “amazing” results but with my skies I find that hard to believe. Just don’t want to start chasing filters if the benefit would be marginal. Thoughts?

Such filters do benefit from dark skies and are more effective under them than they are under light polluted skies. For an observer trying to observe nebulae under bortle 8 skies, which is a pretty challenging proposition, the filter might be the difference between seeing some suggestions of the target and seeing nothing at all.

I think there are better eyepieces around for planetary viewing, but the differences are slight.

The positioning of the planets over the past couple of years has made a really substantial difference to the quality of the views that we are getting in the UK. That is a much larger impact than changing eyepieces or even scopes as has been discussed on this forum many times.

By all means try alternatives but don't be surprised if there are no "magic bullets" out there while the planets remain low

A nice cracker filler

I have an LXD 55 aluminum tripod. It seems to be broadly compatible with the EQ5 / HEQ5 tripod tops. The north peg might be a slightly different design though. It is in the same place but might be shorter or with a slightly different profile. If you got an EQ5/ HEQ5 steel tripod you could probably modify the north peg shape to get it to fit the LXD 55.

Hi,

The 5mm X-Cel LX will be better than the stock eyepieces. It provides a relatively high magnification but at least it will be a useful one. Bear in mind that a lot of astro observing is done at low to medium magnifications. Targets such as the Andromeda Galaxy and Orion Nebula need low to medium magnifications (30x - 80x say) as do many star clusters. 

The 2.3mm X-Cel LX will just not be much use to you to be honest.

It's well worth considering the BST Starguider eyepieces as an alterntative to the X-Cel LX eyepieces. Performance at least as good and somewhat better value for money. You don't need to use Celestron eyepieces just because the scope is branded that:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html

I don't do any imaging so I can't help with that but long exposure imaging is a very different ball game to observing and much more demanding on the mount, scope etc.

I would suggest that you start a separate thread on your scope and needs to avoid de-railing this one which is dealing with a slightly different issue.

19 minutes ago, Drewby80 said:

Hi I have just purchased a Celestron NexStar 102SLT (my first ever attempt at looking aloft).

Im quite pleased with the first objects I’ve looked for and found it very easy to use and even managed to take a nice picture of the moon by aligning my phone camera to the eyepiece in the hour I’ve messed about with it. 
 

I had a look at Mars last night through the 9mm eyepiece it was supplied with but would have liked to see more detail than a red blob. 
 

My question is is it possible to see more detail with something like a 4mm eyepiece in this scope?

Is it worth purchasing one or is there a better solution here?

Thanks in advance and apologies for my complete noobie terminology / ignorance here. 

Hi congratulations on your new scope. It is a nice one

It will show you lots of nice views but Mars is now moving away from us and rapidly dwindling in size. A short focal length eyepiece will show a slightly larger disk but still small and discerning any details on it is now getting challenging even for powerful scopes.

A small pink disk possibly with suggestions of vague dark markings is pretty much about as good as Mars is going to be for some time now. 

There are plenty of other good targets around though and dark nights now (when the clouds stay away) so you should have a good supply of non-planetary targets. Orion is a very fertile hunting ground for example and is well on display mid to late evening currently.

I had a couple of very nice astro related pressies from my lovely daughter and both complete surprises. The moon image was one of mine taken using my mobile phone at the eyepiece of my Tak 100 refractor. How she got hold of it I'll never know but it has made a lovely canvas type enlargement to go on my astro wall

It's such a nice feeling when someone you love goes to that much trouble 

Just a short session tonight with the 100mm refractor.

Mars was hard work to be frank. Mediocre seeing, small disk plus a cold night with heating plumes abounding took their toll so it was only really possible to see vague dark markings on the small disk at 191x.

The Moon was somewhat better and some lovely detail was on show along the terminator provided that I stuck to sub 200x magnification. Above that and the seeing held things back.

Orion well up and very inviting as ever.

Rather surprised (given the conditions) that I could pick out both the E & F stars in the Trapezium cluster. The optimum magnification for this seemed to be 113x (8mm eyepiece) more than that made the task a little harder and less didn't show them. Proved once again that there is a "goldilocks" magnification for teasing these fainter members of this famous group of young stars out of the nebulosity in which they are embedded.

Alnitak (Zeta Orionis) was also rather well split at 191x given the conditions. 2.2 arc second gap but quite a brightness difference and a subtle tint variation between the stars in this pair with the fainter (mag 3.7) star seeming pale yellowish compared with the white of the brighter (mag 1.9) primary star. The third component, C, was also visible a little further off which is mag 9.6.

Nice session, despite the seeing

Seasons greetings to all

This was my first ever wide field eyepiece. A Speers-WALER 24.7mm. It sported a 68 degree apparent field and worked well in my TAL 100 and later my Celestron C5 both of which were F/10. As I moved to faster scopes though astrigmatism became rather obvious in the outer parts of the field and I was less happy with it. I later learned that they 24.7mm (that it it's true focal length apparently) was the least well regarded of the Series 1 Speers-WALER range.

Another interesting early foray into wide field eyepieces was the Fullescopes Super Wide "plossl" which was really an erfle derivative. 80 degree plus AFoV's but, again, very nice at F/10 but the field edges went downhill fast as the scopes got faster. I also has the 20mm in this range quite recently but my current scopes were a bit on the fast side for it.

Over the past few years, re-visiting eyepieces that I used to own has not proved too successful to be honest

I had a set of these as well at one time which were a development of the same 80 degree design:

These are the Japanese Widescan III's. An expensive eyepiece back in the late 1990's but with similar issues to those mentioned above. I had high hopes for the 30mm / 84 degree 2 incher in my Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 but the outer 25% of the FoV was really awful. The view looked a bit like water twirling down a plug hole !

Perhaps this lot are my greatest "misses" rather than hits ?

My fault I guess for a) developing a liking for wide fields and also b) for moving gradually away from F/10 and slower scopes I suppose

Well done Doug !

I've just popped my 100mm frac out for a short spell following a nice family "virtual" meet up. Just saying "Hi" to a few winter favourites

3 hours ago, HollyHound said:

Scrub that... suddenly cleared up and moons amazing 🔭👍

Yep - I've just got out and it's not bad. Not the greatest seeing ever but good enough to have some fun

Short session though - got to keep on the right side of the CEO

Quick set up and tear down are key to getting much astronomy done in the current UK conditions

It is clear now so I've popped my 100m refractor out on an alt-az mount and can get on with observing practically straight off.

23 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Wow!

Some great old EPs coming out of the closet😊👍.

Thanks for sharing and keep 'em coming!

Dave

No more here I'm afraid Dave

I've owned loads of them in the past though and enjoyed most of them. If we can post pics of eyepieces that we used to own then I might be able to help, eg:

Some of the bottom row of this one are pre-2000 I think:

I've owned sets of the old smooth sided TV plossls, TV Widefields and a number of Celestron Ultima's / Orion Ultrascopics. Older erfles and orthos too plus a couple of the Series 1 Speers-WALER's but I just don't have any photos of those, unfortunately.

That is a super image

I was daft enough to look for this one a while back with my Tak 100 refractor. Just about managed to get a glimpse of it. Fascinating object though:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/350271-ngc-2419-a-very-very-distant-globular-cluster/

This is the only pre-2000 eyepiece that I own now. It just squeezes into the criteria having been launched in 1999. My particular example is probably around 15 years old perhaps ?

I found these links very helpful when I was initially trying to see the Horsehead Nebula:

https://observing.skyhound.com/archives/jan/IC_434.html

http://www.perezmedia.net/beltofvenus/archives/000379.html

Very nice Michael. Has a real "classic" look to it

Fortunately the prices of Orion Optics scopes are (usually) somewhat more reasonable bought used. You can avoid that wait time and their "customer service" as well by buying used. 

It's a huge object. Big binoculars and dark skies are probably the best bet for this one.

Here is the moon and NGC 7000 to the same scale:

With a really wide field / low power eyepiece and a good UHC filter you might make out the outline of the "gulf of mexico" area.

The forecast is clear here for most of tomorrow and right through the night but I have committed to a family virtual get together on Xmas eve evening so that will have to take preference.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

400m would be far enough to get a roughly accurate alignment of the finder. You can always "fine tune" it using a star at the beginning of a session.

Carrying the scope around just take care not to bash it and it should be fine.

If you take it on a car journey you will probably need to re-adjust the collimation of the primary and secondary mirrors again. Most likely the primary tilt because that is the heavier piece of glass.

I tend to tweak the finder alignment and check the collimation each time I start a session with my dobsonian. It only takes a couple of minutes.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I’ll post on the heads-up forum, but I’ve just seen it pointed out that Mercury will join the party in January. Lovely grouping on 9th, low down so I suspect naked eye or binos best for this, although they will fit into a widefield scope view quite easily.

Thanks Stu. I don't recall having seen 3 planets in a scope field of view before