Yet another ep question from a newbie!

[Prador]

Having read the excellent ep sticky in this forum I have decided on a range of ep focal lengths.

Can I ask for any advice or personal experience from seasoned observers on the following brands/types?

1. Baader Hyp Mk.III zoom from various retailers

2. BST Explorer ED from Sky's the Limit

3. Explore Scientific 70 degree ep. from Telescope House

I can afford four of the BST's but only three of the ES eyepieces for the same price as the clickstop zoom from Baader.

They will be used in an f8 newt for a few months then I will be looking to obtain a faster f5 newt, just in case this influences the potential purchases.

As always, many thanks in advance for your invaluable help.

Dave

[Capricorn]

The BST's are reckoned to be fine on f/5 scopes, so should be usable after the upgrade. I assume 150mm to 200/250mm.

The ES should also be usable in both scopes, cannot say I am aware of anything that says otherwise.

The Hyperon Zoom I suspect may not be. Sure I have read that the straight eyepieces are not great in fast scopes and I would therefore expect the zoom to suffer the same.

If the above is correct, think it is, then to me it is really 3 eyepieces with 70 degree view or 4 eyepieces with 60 degree view.

Will say that I do not have a zoom and do prefer individual eyepieces. I cannot see a lot of difference between swapping eyepieces and twisting a zoom.

Puzzled: ES make 68, 82 and 100 degree eyepieces. Their 68 degree eyepieces are 6 elements in 4 groups. The 70 degree ES eyepieces from TH are 5 elements, and do not look exactly like the ES 68 dgree ones. May be me but also the TH images manage not to show the name or logo of ES on them.

http://www.explorescientific.com/eyepieces/68_degree_series.html

[Prador]

Thank you Capricorn for your swift reply. The BST's do look nice I have to admit and yes the newt will be either 200 or 250pds. Just working out if I have the room to safely store the larger of the two.

Also, good point on the ES eyepieces. My google-fu is not up to scratch but will try to find more UK outlets for this brand of ep's.

Cheers

[Tribal-Wolf]

Have a couple of BST's and am planning on buying another and recommend them. The Celestron X-Cel LX EPs are supposed to be very good too.

[JamesM]

Just done a quick check and all the retailers including Amazon are selling the Explore Scientific 70 degree eyepiece at the same price as Telescope house's cost of £52. One advantage of the Baader MkIII eyepiece over the use of separate eyepieces is that as a 'zoom' eyepiece, you can use all the focal lengths in between the designated click stopped focal lengths which helps you find that sweet spot resolution which separate eyepieces can't do. This zoom eyepiece however is heavy at around 370g ( about the same weight as a tin of beans) which might be a further consideration for any future scope but with regards to performance, I would argue that it is almost as good as individual Baader eyepieces with the exception of the 24mm, in which the zoom yields a smaller field of view.

James