Quality planetary eyepiece

[Craig20264]

Hi all, I'll shortly be taking delivery of my new scope. A Skywatcher 200P Dob. I have read various reviews about the supplied eyepieces being mediocre and I would like to spend some upcoming birthday cash on a quality planetary eyepiece.

Correct me if i'm wrong but the max I would be looking at would be around a 6mm eypiece, given the focal length of 1200mm, which in turn gives me 200x magnification.

I appreciate I am looking at serious money for one eyepiece, but I don't want it to be the weak link in the chain, as the scope is only as good as it's eyepiece.

Also if buying top quality, is it possible to stretch the magnification even further, or is it just not viable with our seeing in this country?

Your thoughts greatly appreciated once again

Craig

[John]

I think you will use 200x more often than anything higher. It would be a pity to invest in something that you would not be able to use much because the seeing conditions (which are the limiting factor) don't allow it to be effective.

If you really want to push the boat out there is the 6mm Tele Vue Ethos which delivers amazing clarity, sharpness and contrast coupled with an ultra-wide field of view which makes manual tracking that much easier. The eyepiece costs over £400 though which is obviously very serious money.

Back in much more affordable territory, the Baader Genuine Orthoscopic 6mm delivers excellent performance albeit with the relatively narrow field of view and tight eye relief of the orthoscopic design. These cost £72 apiece.

Two extremes there but both deliver superb planetary viewing under good conditions and with a well collimated scope.

[Craig20264]

If you really want to push the boat out there is the 6mm Tele Vue Ethos which delivers amazing clarity, sharpness and contrast coupled with an ultra-wide field of view which makes manual tracking that much easier. The eyepiece costs over £400 though which is obviously very serious money.

Think the missus would push my boat out if I bought that one John

Will check out the Baader though.

Thanks

[AWR]

Hi Craig,

I like my TS planetary (about £50) and I enjoyed looking through someone's WO SPL (£69 from FLO) at SGL6 last year. Both of these have more eye relief and field of view than the orthoscopics (although less contrast).

After getting my first TV eyepiece though (my Panoptic), I'm currently saving for a 6mm Delos (£265 - hoping there may be some deals available at Astrofest again!).

Andrew

[killer10971]

but are the televues worth the money??

[John]

but are the televues worth the money??

I think they are but I think everyone will have their own opinion on that.

The Ethos eyepieces are certainly the best eyepieces I have used in 30 years in the hobby.

They are not 10x better than a £40 eyepiece though but I'm sure that's no surprise. The performance increments get smaller and smaller as the price rises.

It's a whole new topic though and a bit of a diversion from the OP's original question. The search facility on the forum will find a number of previous threads on the merits or otherwise of Tele Vue and other premium brands.

On the OP's question, I'd agree with Andrew that the William Optics SPL 6mm would be worth considering as well.