New Lens's

[witchypoo]

Good afternoon to you all. Would anyone be able to help in assisting me to buy my hubby some more lens's for his Skywatcher 200p EQ5. we had a couple come with it when wi bought it but wondered if it was worth investing in a few more?

Thank you

[Ericgraham]

Let us know what focal length eyepieces that he has. The focal length should be written on each. Also consider a Barlow lens, it is used to change the magnification of an existing eyepiece- usually by a factor of two to three.

[DOBBY]

Hyperian click-stop zoom 24mm - 8mm seems to be very popular...umpteen eyepieces in one & better quality than the 'boxed-sets'

a nice wide-angle eyepiece is also good to have...maybe a 32mm panaview by S'watcher...a barlow will in effect double your options for viewing

[JimStan]

One can never have enough eyepieces. That seems to be a very common conception amongst us amateur astronomers !

[witchypoo]

it is really that expensive!!!!!

[JamesM]

Before giving you any good advice we will need to know the details of the scope (what it says on the label) what writing appears on the eyepieces and how much you want to spend. Any suggestions are meaningless without this starting point.

James

[great_bear]

Popular choices for add-on eyepieces are the "TMB Designed" and "BST Explorer" from Sky's The Limit from about £36-£41 each.

Click here <click> for more details.

They are the lowest-priced, good-quality, easy-to-use eyepieces that you can get. This article <click> can help you choose which lengths to consider.

[great_bear]

we will need to know the details of the scope (what it says on the label)

She said: It's a 200P on EQ5, so it's F5 and 1000mm focal length, comes with the standard 10mm and 25mm Sky-Watcher eyepieces and the good version of the 2x Barlow.

[brantuk]

What's your budget Witchy? EP's can cost from £15 to £650 each. And how many are you wanting to get him?

[witchypoo]

i'm not sure really, i don't really know what else to buy him as accessories for it apart from lens's unless any of you pros can come up with any other ideas.

[ronin]

As Great Bear mentions the BST Explorers, from Skys the Limit.

I would say the 8mm and the 18mm which would come to £82.

The 8mm will give a bit more magnification then the 10mm that came with the scope and is probably a better eyepiece for clarity.

The 18mm will again give more then the 25mm, so those 4 would be a good set, at some time he may/will want the 5mm for magnification, but I would hold off of that at the moment.

The 8mm will give 125x magnification and the 18mm will give 56x magnification.

The BST have wind out eyecups so if he doesn't wear glasses he will need to wind these out to get his eye at the best position.

The BST give a bit wider field of view as well. I have a few and they are excellent.

[witchypoo]

Thank you Ronin, that sounds great i will look at them.

[stev74]

I recently sold my 200P/EQ5, after using it for a couple of years I tried lots of different eyepieces (EP's), the focal lengths that I found I used most were -

32mm EP for wide field low magnification views (x31 mag) and viewing big deep sky objects (DSO's) the Double Cluster M31 etc.

15mm EP for most other DSO's (x67).

6mm EP for high magnification planetary views (x167) you can go for a higher mag for planets but with the seeing conditions in the UK I found a 6mm useful on most nights.

The Skywatcher Panaview/ William Optics SWAN for wide field, the BST's/ Meade series 5000 for mid range are very nice EP's to start with I owed a few before and a TMB or Ortho for planetary views would be my recommendations.

[sabana]

I dont think you need more than three

[ronin]

You can NEVER have enough eyepieces. If you start at 5mm and go up to 32mm that makes 28 possibilities at 1mm intervals. I passed 28 eyepieces a long time back.

I would say that 4 should give a fair selection but find that 5 covers more options. Owing to the scopes I have I find that a 32 or 40 is used for alignment - Mak goto. After that, and based on the BST range, I use the 8 and 11 for magnification, the 15 or 18 for general viewing, and the 25 for centering the next object I use the goto for.

On an F/5 I can use to 5mm occasionally. So that is a use for all the BST's. Admit that twice 2 of them sort of double up, but viewing conditions change and the object.

On a 200P I think the 8 and 18 will back up the 2 he has and at some time he will want a 5mm just for the 200x magnification.

Maybe 2 more next birthday and the final 2 the one after. Makes present picking easy.

[rwilkey]

I would agree with the 8 and 18mm BST's, a good choice for the 200P as you can see from my signature.

[witchypoo]

Thank you all very much for your help. He is a major beginner and i'm sure we'll be back for more help in how to set it up properly as the manual says find the north star to set up the focus etc!!!! Puzzled!!!!. he opened his pressies this morning and was over the moon with his new lenses. Thanks again.

[ronin]

Polaris is pretty good, it doesn't "move" much so should stay in view while playing with the focuser. However if he can see polaris as any sort of an object in the eyepiece then it is pretty close to being in focus.

Simply put if not in, or close to focus, then the image is so out of focus that you will see nothing.

Start out with the longest length eyepiece you/he has. This will have the widest field of view.

Try getting Jupiter in view, or the moon. Even with a wide view this is not easy. Unless you set up the finder first.

Remember that the eyepieces you have are not par focal. So when swapping between what came with the scope and whatever you purchased there will be a need to alter the focus. Hopefully not by too much.

As a couple of things to look at: Jupiter and Orion Nebula. That should give him a chance to play with magnification and field of views. The Pleiades is another - follow Orions belt to the right.