Meade ETX 125PE Eye's Pieces Questions

[StaticThought]

Hey Guys,

Well my Meade ETX125PE arrived yesterday morning. Managed to get it up and running tonight and found Saturn. Love the autostar etc and the clarity of image as well.

My question is, What would you guys reccomend I get as far as EP's are concerned. I used a couple from my Skywatcher but I feel these are not ideally suited to the Meade. I have the EP that came with the Meade which is a Plossl 26mm item. My main interest's are planetary, lunar with maybe some DS if seeing allows. Would like to get closer than the 26mm allows but not so close that the image is low quality.

Also tried the barlowX2 that I have with the Skywatcher but again it was very blury and very difficult to focus. Would rather not have to use the Barlow if possible as I found this obviously darkens the image I see as well.

Any suggestions etc on what would be a good 3 EP's to have would be greatfully received.

Thanks In Advance, Regards

Chris

[GazOC]

I've never used a Meade 125, so I'll let others recommend eyepeices but two things to remember is that increasing the magnification will always darken the image and make it harder to focus. Thats just how it 'works' I'm afraid, when you up the magnification you're speading the same amount of light collected over a larger area. Thats not to say you won't get more joy if you change the Barlow/ Skywatcher eyepeices, just that the issues will still be there to a greater or lesser extent.

[lunator]

Barlows can give various levels of performance with ETXs.

I had to buy a specific one for my ETX70 although I'm sure the 125 isn't as 'fussy'.

Give Steve at FLO a call to discuss.

Cheers

ian

[gsjag]

Hi Chris,

I have found the Celestron 2x Ultima SV gives excellent results with my 125, but your choice of eyepiece may give different results, I haven't tried many others so couldn't comment. I am using a £99 set of Revelations (why I think are excellent) although I tend not to use the higher power ones (max I use is 12mm). The 26mm Meade that came with the scope is, in my view, hopeless, although I know a lot of people rate them very highly. More recently I purchased a Baader Hyperion 13mm and 21mm. For their price (against the Revelations), I feel I have wasted my money as they perform no better (the 13mm being slightly Superior to the 21mm). Having said that, I haven't had a whole lot of chances to use them due to cloud cover. Great eye relief though.

Hope that helps a bit.

Gary

[StaticThought]

Excellent Thanks guys, Something to go on for now. Loving the scope loads.

Thanks Again

[GazOC]

Gary,

To a large extent what you are paying for with Hyperions is their performance in short focal ratio scopes, the ETX is f15 and not too fussy on eyepeices, you probably could have got away with cheaper choices (the 66Deg Ultrawides are around £30 each and work very well in slow scopes). Getting eyepieces with a decent AFOV that stay reasonably sharp across the whole field for f5 scopes is a different matter, thats why they cost that much more.

Gaz

[gsjag]

Thanks Gaz. I kinda guessed that the limiting factor was likely to be the 'scope rather than the eyepeices but thought it worth mentioning anyway. I decided to start building my collection so that I have some half decent ones to use should I ever get a nice (and rather slower) refractor one day. So far I can't see that the expense has been justified but then, having only used them in the ETX, I won't. But I do take your point and thanks for making it because it reminds me of why one of my prime reasons for investing in them in the first place.

Gary