quality EP's

[omeganeb]

Hi.after buying my etx 105 from my brother ive been reading alot about EP's and i understand that good quality optics are a vital point in viewing the heavens.i was just wondering if any of you more expierienced guys could shed light on wether my EP's are any good for my scope.

I dont know if it helps but my focal range is f14.

Here is a list of my EP's

celestrom 32mm fully multi coated plossy

what appears to be an unbranded multi mzt 8-24mm

26mm meade super plossyl lp multi coated

astro engineering 2x barlow

and meade 3000 series 5mm 6,7mm 9,5mm and 16mm

Was just wondering if these eyepieces were hindering my viewing expierience and should i go for a couple of better makes.for all i know the meades may be more than capable but i just thought id ask.thanks guys

[hemihaggis]

they sound pretty good to me

[John]

I would not rate the unbranded zoom lens (plus it duplicates the other eyepieces but with less opical quality) but the others on your list are decent quality eyepieces. The Meade 3000's in particular are little gems in my opinion and very underrated.

You would need to spend a lot of money to get any noticeable improvements (like £100's).

PS: don't use too much magnification though. The barlow lens with the 5mm or 6.7mm eyepiece would be too much for the scope and the usual seeing conditions we have.

[swamp thing]

The early Meade 3000 plossls are great eyepieces with the 16mm considered a classic, would like this one myself.

The eye relief is quite tight on the shorter focal length ones but they work well.

I have the 9.5mm one and it works extremely well in my Dobs.

Regards Steve

[omeganeb]

Cheers guys.its nice to get some conformation that the eyepieces in genera are good.ive not used the 2x barlow at all to be honest but may give it a go next chance i get.ive used the unbranded eyepiece a bit and i will be sure to talk to my bro as i cant imagine him buying poor optics and when used it looked fairly decent i thought.nice crisp lines on the moon showing nice detail.its also easier to use when with the kids as i dont have to keep swapping eyepieces out.the boys just happy to see if he can spot the man in the moon.......he hasnt yet

[brantuk]

Another vote for the Meades - I have two of the 3000 series and one 4000. They are very good quality and you'd have to spend around £100 per ep to get really noticable improvements.

You're zoom sounds iffy to me and the AE barlow I'm not familiar with. I can say Celestron Ultima 2x barlow, or Orion Shorty Plus 2x, are very good (around £80 new or £45/£50 s/h).

Otherwise your collection looks very reasonable to me.

[Trickystar1]

Your eye pieces are decent. I usually go for the accessory packs and them surprisingly as good as my branded plossls. Unless you spend 300 pennies or more you won't really notice a big enough difference. I have the revelation eye piece set 127 quid from telescope house and iv had a lot of fellow astronomers highly rating them. Barlow lens are all you need with a few 10, 15, 20 mm lense and maybe a 25 wide angle with a uhc filter.

[LouisB]

Have briefly discussed zoom vs primes for my Cel.800 gps sct on another thread, the general opinion was in favour of primes. I was originally thinking of fitting one of the new Baader's but having removed the Celestron zoom that came with an older Celestron 80 mm Regal spotting scope and tried it in the sct I was taken aback at the poor performance compared with the good results when fitted to the spotting scope.

Quite dull and low contrast images and an inability to obtain correct focus at larger magnification zoom settings. Most of my other primes (Tele-View and Celestron) are fine and I'm pleased with the scope. My normal hobby interest is in photography and image processing so not terribly well up in the finer arts of telescope optics. but obviously I am missing something along the line re differences in zoom lens abilities when fitted to different scopes. Any advice or pointers welcome although I seem to be travelling along the 'primes' road for the time being.

Thanks,

LouisB

[Catweazel]

I just bought a Meade 3000 series 25mm and a Meade 4000 series 9.7mm 2nd hand (maybe from someone on SGL??) from Astro Buy&Sell, to replace the skywatchers that came with my scope. haven't got them yet though, but am very pleased that you guys rate them as decent eyepieces.

[omeganeb]

So can you get decent enough zoom lenses or are they generally not as good as a single leense.

[brantuk]

At £50 the SW zoom is a bargain basement item imho - certainly not the best but then pretty much the cheapest of any note.

A really great zoom is the Baader Hyperion - it works well, it's smashing quality and several quality steps above supplied eyepieces. Sharp and contrasty with a very smooth action, no noticeable internal reflections, highly adaptable for projection photography, good eye relief, and a very realistic price being only £20-30 above some eyepiece kits.

Mine is my most used eyepiece - solid workhorse - just a little narrow at the bottom end but that's no biggie - I allways recommend it - should be on commission really lol