Jeff Slone

On 22/03/2020 at 05:30, Ricochet said:

1.25" is a standard size. If your telescope takes 1.25" eyepieces then any 1.25" eyepiece will work.

What sort of budget do you have for buying new eyepieces? With a focal ratio of 8.8 your telescope will be quite forgiving and almost all eyepieces should work well. Plossl eyepieces will work well, or if you would like a slightly wider field of view the eyepieces sold in the UK as BST Starguiders are a good and popular choice.

In terms of focal lengths I would start with something in the region of 2 - 2.5X the focal ratio, so about 18mm. Normally I would say to double this for your widest field but a 1.25" barrel will limit you to a 32mm Plossl. Eyepieces with a wider field of view will have to be even shorter, for example with the BSTs a 25mm is the maximum in the range. 

For higher powers, the 8 and 12mm Starguiders would work well, or equivalents in Plossls. However, with the classic eyepiece designs, eye relief starts getting very tight with short focal length eyepieces so you may wish to either use a longer eyepiece and a barlow, or a more modern design with consistent eye relief (i.e the BSTs, or the eyepieces sold as "Planetaries").

If you really want a "set" then the Baader BCO set would work nicely, but beware the short eye relief in the shorter focal lengths.

First of all, thank you for the response, as well as Peter and everybody responding.  I am on an extremely tight budget.  At the moment, to get my telescope functional, I would need to spend in the range of maybe 50-60 dollars.  I don't know if that's enough to get more than one eyepiece, or if it's even enough to get one good eyepiece. But I need to do something, right now my telescope is just a large, heavy paper weight:)

I have the same model telescope a Meade Polaris 114EQ-D.  My problem is, I've lost my eye pieces during a move. Does anyone know if the 1.25 eye pieces are universal and fit my telescope as replacements? Or do I need to look for other sized eye pieces? Are there a basic set of eye pieces, sizes I should look for? Any help would be appreciated.