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Eyepiece recommendations for a 114mm

wired2moon

By wired2moon
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wired2moon

wired2moon

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Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie with a not so new telescope (bought ~3 years ago but seldom used) and around £100 of budget. Now that I've moved away from the urban bright lights and into the sticks (to a house with more room) its much more viable to use the scope, so I've got it set up, collimated and am determined to start enjoying it! What I'm hoping to do now is optimise the scope's performance by getting some new eyepices - so looking for advice on the best eyepieces to buy for my particular scope (maybe one or two at this stage). I have a Skywatcher SkyHawk 1145PM, length = 500mm, aperture = 114mm. It came with a couple of "Super MA" eyepices (10mm and 25mm) which are OK. It also came with a barlow whose glass has cracked so I've just replaced that with TAL x2 (far superior anyway by all accounts). My interests at this point are a bit of everything - planetary and DSO.

I suppose my biggest conundrum is which planetary eyepiece to get as I'd like to see as much detail on the various planets as possible without the image becoming noticeably degraded - I understand my scope dimensions will be a limiting factor as will be the seeing. At this point my thinking is to get as 'close' to the target object (e.g Saturn) as said limitations will allow which almost certainly means I'll be barlowing a 5mm, 6mm, 7mm or 8mm eyepiece (to get x200, x166, x142 or x125). No idea which one is the most sensible choice though!! Because the high magnification would only be with the TAL barlow, the eyepiece will not be wasted under more limited seeing conditions. Models of interest so far are TMB Planetary II and BST Explorer ranges.

I'm also keen to know what lower magnification eyepieces are recommended for DSO viewing (in a scope like mine) and what kinds of views of various DSO objects I'd see through them. I obviously don't expect to see Hubble type images! I just want to get the best out of my particular scope.

Thoughts anyone?

Apologies for the long winded into!

Cheers,

ZG

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wired2moon

wired2moon

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Thanks folks :)

Hello and Welcome to the forum!

I suggest you to get 2.5mm eyepiece for planetary observing. :icon_eek: I have 4mm but planing to get 2.5 to not use barlow. :angry4:

Cheers for the tip Zul, what make/model is your 4mm EP and how well does it perform in your scope (what kind of detail do you see)? Doesn't the 4mm work well with the Barlow (I assume it's a x2)?

Ta,

ZG

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wired2moon

wired2moon

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welcome! more aperture will make more difference than more eyepieces. personally, I'd consider a larger scope and the sale of your current one.

Cheers moonshane, fair suggestion! what aperture size would you suggest for someone in my situation? I'm wary that a new scope may have sub-standard EPs though...

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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Cheers moonshane, fair suggestion! what aperture size would you suggest for someone in my situation? I'm wary that a new scope may have sub-standard EPs though...

a 6" dobsonian would provide 1.73x more light gathering, have a longer focal length (= more magnification with the same eyepieces) and would provide a much more stable platform. you could sell your scope for maybe £50 and then for your budget would have a better scope all round. f you bought used you might get 8".

You can buy better eyepieces in time when funds allow.

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wired2moon

wired2moon

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a 6" dobsonian would provide 1.73x more light gathering, have a longer focal length (= more magnification with the same eyepieces) and would provide a much more stable platform. you could sell your scope for maybe £50 and then for your budget would have a better scope all round. f you bought used you might get 8".

You can buy better eyepieces in time when funds allow.

Hmmm very interesting, in that case I might take a look around the new and used markets - 8" would provide decent future proofing (something like a second hand Skyliner 200P dob) but 6" still a significant upgrade.

How much more limiting would a dobsonian be than an EQ mount? e.g. for tracking stars as the world turns?

Thanks again :)

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