Eye Piece choice

[Dude]

Hi All,

I have been doing some reading and selected the eyepieces I think would suit my telescope the best, I have a Meade 8" - f10 LX10 on a fork mount.

This is the list I have come up with...

7.5mm - mag of 266

12.5mm - mag of 160

20mm - mag of 100

30mm - mag of 66

I like the look of the Williams Optics EP's so I selected the below from what they have available...

SPL 6mm

SPL 12.5mm

SWAN 20mm

SWAN 33mm

Before I buy I would like your advice on this selection, especially on the 6mm - do you think this is too high a power?

Would I be better off dropping the 6mm and go for a 2x Barlow instead?

All advice most welcome!

[Merlin66]

I think you'll get more use out of a 8mm e/p on your set-up.

I wouldn't bother with a barlow at this stage....

[red dwalf]

not sure on the focal length of the meade 8" scopes but if they are the same as celestron being around 2000mm then i would say the 6 is too much, i use a 21mm hyperion in my celestron for almost everything, so comfortable to use with good eye relief, if you pump up the mag by much more than 200x unless you have great skies you start to loose detail. plus a good barlow would turn your 33mm into at 15mm and th 20mm into a 10mm saving you two eyepieces there

[damnut]

Hi Dude,

I have the 10"lx and rarely use anything less than 20mm. That gives me 125x although I have a 2" 15mm I occasionally sometimes rarely... use a 2" barlow with the 20mm!.

[Moonshane]

I think in your scope the WO eyepieces would work very well. I used the 33mm SWAN in a 120mm f8.3 frac and this was a lovely combination. You might even be better with the 40mm to give a widest field and still with a decent exit pupil.

If you went for the 40mm, the 20mm and the 12.5mm this would give decent ranges of magnification but I agree that anything more than 12.5mm might be pushing things initially and 6mm would be too much on almost all nights other than lunar/doubles.

If the 12.5mm leaves you wanting a bit more than maybe a 10mm would be good too but see how it goes first.

Perhaps a better option is to buy them bit by bit and possibly used and you can then gauge if you like them or not ; many different eyepieces have different characters and sometimes some people get on with one type and not another.

[Dude]

Thanks for all your advice - to start with I have ordered the WO 20mm SWAN, l'll see how I get on with that first then may get a 40 and a 12.5

[great_bear]

6mm is too much, 12 too little. Something like a 9mm Celestron X-Cell LX is appropriate for routine planetary observing with your scope.

[JimStan]

I like the idea of the barlow because you can use a lower power eyepiece, which generally has longer eye relief, and get a higher magnification for those times when the seeing is extra good.

But I don't see that your choice of eyepieces are going to fit a 3X barlow very well, so I would also advise against purchasing one right now, either.

If you can swing a good deal on a 6mm eyepiece, go ahead and get one. The view on those once in a long time steady nights will be worth it! But don't break the piggybank to purchase one, until you round out your collection of longer FL eyepieces.

I am usually quite happy with around 9mm for the most magnification under normal conditions.

Jim S.