Beginner Eyepieces

[Guest MunkyJunky]

Hey all!

I've recently got into astronomy, after finding a telescope over at my grandmas house that she completely forgot she owned. It's a Telstar 700x76 scope on an Alt-Azimuth mount, and from what I've read it's not bad for starting out on. I've used it a few times to look at the moon (with great results using the 20mm eyepiece that came with it), but nothing further as I've yet to learn an effective way of actually using the mount for finer adjustments.

I've been having a look found on here, and found the sticky "Eyepieces - the very least you need" (link), which says

If they are marked 'H' or 'SR' don't even think about keeping them!

I was wondering why not, as both my eyepieces supplied with my scope are a 4mm (marked SR4) and a 20mm (makred H20). The 20mm doesn't seem too bad to me, but it's the only eyepiece I've ever used.

I'm also looking at getting myself a new eyepiece, and the aforementioned thread suggested for my scope 4 suitable eyepieces would be a 6mm, 11mm, 18mm and 27mm. I was wondering if getting a 32mm, a 12.5mm, and a 2x Barlow would more or less cover those, as (if I understand correctly), this would give me a 32mm, an effective 18mm (32mm + 2x Barlow), a 12.5mm, and an effective 6mm (12.5mm + 2x Barlow). Am I right in this assumption? Right now, this is the cheapest option to me for getting the high, med-high, med-low and low power eyepieces. I'd like to check that I'm right in this before I commit to buying an eyepiece. I'm only thinking of the 12.5mm eyepiece any time soon, then others throughout 2012.

Any help or advice would be appreciated!

[great_bear]

I was wondering why not, as both my eyepieces supplied with my scope are a 4mm (marked SR4) and a 20mm (makred H20).

Well-made "H" and "SR" eyepieces are few and far between, and only work well in telescopes with very high focal ratios.

When considering eyepieces for the scope you currently have, bear in mind that reasonable-quality eyepieces generally start at about £25 second-hand and about £35 new. Good barlows cost even more. You might also find some bargains in the AstroBoot section of the Scopes 'n' Skies web site.

My own feeling, is that the best use of your money right now would be a Seben Zoom eyepiece (one of the few Seben products that gets excellent reviews!) which will give you a wide range of magnifications.

If you find then that you want to spend more time with astronomy, then you can start setting money aside for a bigger scope, rather than blowing such money now on seperate eyepieces.

[Pete Presland]

thats pretty good advise from great bear,or also you get a couple of the skywatcher supplied eyepieces that are sold regularly when buyers upgrade.i think there is a couple on astro buy and sell now.you can normally get them for around £10-15

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell