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Lens that come with Scopes


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Would it be a fair assumption that the more money you pay for a scope the better the quality of the eye pieces?

for instance - if paying around £150 for a new scope will an upgrade of a lens or two make a difference?

I know it is very generic but just a thought - don't want to waste money on a £20 lens if the ones that came with a scope are good enough.

Thinking along the lines of Celestron and Skywatcher scopes (130-150mm).

Thanks in advance.

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Not really - decent eyepieces start around £30 each so if they included those then the scope price would increase accordingly - no such thing as a freebie really !.

The supplied eyepieces are just about good enough to get you going - their value is probably only around £10 or so each.

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Generally the eyepieces supplied with new scopes are chosen to give reasonable performance with the scope at minimal cost to the manufacturer. So any improvement involves spending more than a £20 eyepiece.

Having said that. I used to have some Skywatcher 10mm & 25mm eyepieces that came with the skywatcher 102 refractor. The 25mm was OK, the 10mm gave really poor contrast. That result was seen in several different scopes I tried. Something similar was reported by others with these types of eyepieces.

So no clear (excuse the pun) answers I afraid.

Get your scope, give it a try. You will probably find there is a lot to do and learn before you run into eyepiece quality issues. Then see if you can borrow an odd eyepiece from someone to see if it is worth spending on upgrades.

There are often used eyepieces on sale so lots of us aren't happy with the views for at least some of the time.

Hope there is something in there to help.

David.

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I found eyepieces at the £30 - 50 mark were a noticible step up from the supplied eyepieces. I bought a couple of £20-25 EP's and they didn't really give me anything extra. I am now building up a collection of TMB II (£40) and Hyperion (£95) eyepieces and these really deliver better results. I have borrowed a couple of Nagler and Panoptic eyepieces and while these are a step up again, I can't justify £150 - 200 per eyepiece with current finances.

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I bought a Celestron EP kit for my SW 200P. Much better. I cut holes in the case to house the SW EPs but the reality is I don't use them anymore. The kit came in at ~£120 I think (6 EPs from 6 - 32mm, several filters and a x2 Barlow).

The EPs seem much better with a broader range but I'm not sure the Barlow is an improvement.

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Some of the more "expensive" scopes don't even come with eyepieces at all.

If the scope you are buying is relatively slow, say f8 or f10 then the supplied eyepieces will probably be ok. In general the longer focal lengths ones (higher mm, lower magnification) will be better.

Replacement quality plossls can be sourced for £30 - 50 when you are ready. But there is a limit as to improvement as having a well corrected APO triplet and using a £10 skywatcher eyepiece in it is pointless and equally having a budget or beginner scope and putting Televue Ethos Eyepieces in it is equally pointless.

If it's your first scope, use what you get with it, get observing and start enjoying it without worrying too much about the next upgrade, there will be plenty of time for that....

PS stick to as low a power as you can at first, if it comes with a 25mm eyepice then use it over a 10mm and forget the barlow if it has one.

Cheers

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