Eyepieces for William Optics Zenithstar 66ED (Petzval)

[John]

You have chosen some fine eyepieces there. I use 8mm and 6mm Ethe barlowed with an Antares 1.6X 2" barlow for 5mm and 3.75mm and they work excellently. I thought about a Powermate 2x but felt that the weight, combined with the already pretty hefty Ethe, would be a bit too much.

[LDUNN1]

thx Mike - yeap, can't wait!!! Something to do during the imaging!!

John, the heft of the longer Ethos EP's didn't escape me - I was tossing up between the cheaper 17mm & the 21mm - then I saw the weights, the 21mm is something else!

I got the 1.6x Antares barlow after favourable reviews on here, & then added the televue 2x & 2.5x to try & give myself some options interms of pushing my little scope mag wise as much as possible.......it should also help filling in for the mags betwene what I have.

......I know it is overkill for the current scope, & many may say I'm mad, but I think I'm pretty set for good now, & I'll never be wondering whats holding any of my future scopes back......When I bought the little WO 66 cheaply second hand, I never realised that it would trigger so much extra expense ;-) !!!

[LDUNN1]

.......update after a quick night visual through the E17 on the WO ZS 66ED

.......this was a very quick back garden look at the night sky, because I was desperate to take a peek through the E17.

.......it was a rubbish night for viewing - clouds & a full moon - which I could not actually see (behind trees) BUT it was casting lots of light that ruined the rest of the sky - I could make out plough, Cygnus, vega & Arcturus, but precious few other constellations & stars.....it was not that dark - as I said it was a poor night.

.......The one thing I did notice, is that on this scope, stars coming into view at the edges were not sharp - they were fine in maybe the central 75/80% but the outer rim they were not sharp at all. This surprised me, as they are sharp to the edge with the E8......I am guessing here, but I think it might be that the E17, being a true 2" EP, may be working closer to the edges of the image circle, where despite the WO 66ED being a petzval design, is not as flat an image near the edges.

This issue is not a big concern, but thought I'd mention it for others.

[CowHampshire]

I used almost exclusively the 5, 9, and 11mm Naglers & a 2X Barlow. Great little scope which in my opnion (if you get a good one) can be puhsed beyond 2X the CA. Good luck!!