Grippo

3 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

For a fast Newt like that a Barlow slows it down enough to use inexpensive eyepieces. The BST's already mentioned would be perfect. You could start with a Barlow at £45, add an 8mm at £49 either now or later. Then if you decide you want more, you could add a 5mm, which with the Barlow would give x180 and about as much as I'd recommend for that scope.

You can find the BSTs here 
https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html

Thanks!!  The BSTs sound like a perfect balance of budget and upgrade for where we're at right now.

1 hour ago, PeterStudz said:

I have a very similar telescope - a Skywatcher Skyhawk 1145p. One thing I would say is get a white light solar filter. I’ve had more fun with this than anything else. And with the solar cycle hotting up it’s a good time. 

I’d also echo what has been said already and get a 2x Barlow. I had a stock 2x Barlow with the telescope but it was rubbish. Replacing it with something reasonable was a good move.

For high power I find that the 5mm BST StarGuider plus 2x Barlow works well, especially on the moon. I wear glasses when observing and the eye relief has been fine for me. For planets like Jupiter and Saturn 170x is the max I found possible when the seeing was good.  I was even able to see the Great Red Spot on a good night although it was small. And you’ll easily be able to see Saturns rings. You should be able to get a little more magnification on the moon. 

The telescope is really best at wide field and I’ve had better views of things like the Pleiades and Beehive Cluster with this telescope than the much larger Skywatcher Skyliner 200p Dob which I also own. 

This is really interesting - my 7 year old is all about the planets and that's what got us started down this route, but the more I learn about all of this the more I can see what you mean about wide field objects, which are really exciting too!

Thanks everyone - these are really helpful responses and I'm very grateful.  Nice to see that I wasn't to wide of the mark, and to get some recommendations too.  I shall lurk on this friendly and fascinating forum to see what elese I can pick up!

Thanks again  for the help and warm welcome

I mean, is it as "simple as these?

https://uk.telescope.com/Telescopes/6mm-Orion-Expanse-Telescope-Eyepiece/rc/1306/p/109904.uts

https://uk.telescope.com/Telescopes/Orion-Tri-Mag-125-3x-Barlow-Lens/rc/1306/p/109891.uts

Is there a catch with the wide-view Expanse type lens?  There's always a catch isn't there?... 🤣

Hi everyone, I'm a novice at this game and I have some very basic questions!

I have an Orion Starblast ii as a Christmas present.  It's a reflector with a 450mm focal length and 114mm diameter.  f/4.0.  It came with Sirius Plossl eyepieces at 10mm and 25mm.  Had some excellent experience so far looking at the moon, but my youngest is absolutely crazy about planets (Saturn in particular) so I'd like to get the right accessories to help us look at the planets in more detail (Saturn's rings, jupiter moons, maybe even colours/spot on jupiter?). 

If I'm understanding things correctly (And Warthog's pinned post about eyepieces was really helpful) then I should be thinking about accessories to improve the magnification in order to see the things we're interested in, but on a fast f/4.0 scope it seems like a Plossl smaller than 10mm wouldn't be a particularly good idea?  So, I'm after a bit of help to make sure I don't make any silly errors with what I do next!!  I guess my current thinking would be to try to find a short eyepiece (~6mm) that has decent eye-relief, and maybe add a Barlow lens at some future point?

• Would a 6.2mm Plossl be too uncomfortable with the limited eye-relief?
• If 6.2mm is a sensible size for what I want to do, are there any EPs that would be recommended?
• Should I just get a barlow to go with the 10mm EP?  2x or 3x?
• What should I be thinking about that I'm currently overlooking?

Long term, this will def be used for looking at the moon and planets.  It would be nice to expand that to interesting stars and other stuff later.  As for budget up to £50 would be easy, I could stretch to £100, maybe a little more for the *right* accessory if it makes a big difference to what we're trying to achieve.  Can easily get a few different things over a few months if that is the best use of my time and money too!

All help and advice very gratefully received!!!