Hello! & Eye piece kit question.

[Keener_7]

This is my first post and would just like to start of by saying hello to everyone. This seems like a fine forum full of knowledgeable people, and i'm happy to be a part of it.

I have been looking up into the night sky practically all my life, with awe and amazement of whats out there and how it all came to be. I have always wanted a scope and was planning on buying one in the past year but never did get around to it due to other things(wedding and a house).

After the latest solar eclipse and the upcoming transit of Venus, I went ahead and bought a celestron travelscope 70 with solar filter for $100 CAD to view the transit. For the price, I am very happy with this scope so far(Tripod leaves a lot to be desired, luckily the wife had a sturdy one for her DSLR) The detail in the moon is amazing, I can see sun spots, I have looked at Saturn and was wowed, and saw many many stars that were once invisible to me.

OK, finally to the point. I am still planning on getting a larger scope in the upcoming year (maybe the Nexstar 8Se) and was thinking about buying some eyepieces now. I was looking at the Celestron 1.25" eyepiece and filter kit, it seems like a good kit with a 6mm, 8mm, 13mm, 17mm and 32mm eye pieces, a 2X Barlow and 5 filters. I know I could get some use out of the 8,13,17mm eyepieces now and use them later when i get another scope but the cost just seem so cheap at $150CAD when comparing to other eyepieces which stand alone at $150.

So basically what I'm asking is, are these eyepieces are any good or just some duds? Would It be wise to buy this kit as a good starter or save my money and invest it in a quality Barlow or eyepiece instead?

Thank you, and sorry for the long story for such a simple question.

[Bart]

welcome Keener,

We all make the mistake of running off to buy kit. If you do plan to upgrade, think about good EPs, its the best advice. You'll end up buying them anyway. The set will be ok to play with initially, but look for good mid price EPs for the future, the 8SE could take them.

Bart

[jerryTheC]

I agree with Bart - the sets are a relatively cheap way to try out different focal length eyepieces, but there are better (and more expensive ) eyepieces available. The filters (other than a moon filter, to drop the brightness of the moon down a bit) are unlikely to get much use.

Basic eyepieces tend to be scaled designs - that is, if you want an eyepiece with half the focal length, you just shrink the optics by a factor of two. This means that you get smaller eye lenses at shorter focal lengths - and it also usually means that the eye relief ( how close you need to put your eye to the eyepiece) shrinks as well.

In more expensive eyepieces, they often vary the design with the focal length - so they can keep a good eye relief and a bigger eye lens, which tends to make the shorter focal length eyepieces easier to use.

The other thing that more expensive eyepieces often give you is a wider apparent field of view - that is, the circle that you see the image in gets bigger. Basic eyepieces are probably around 40-50 degree AFOV. Wider AFOVs - like the Baader Hyperion range, at around 68 degrees if I remember correctly - are nicer, and ultrawide (80 degree and up, like the Televue Naglers (82 degree) and Ethos (100 degree) are really impressive (though some people find them too wide) since the image gets big enough that you don't usually notice the edges. The downside is that as well as being very nice, they also get very expensive

Also, don't get carried away with high magnification - there are a lot of things - like open clusters - where a low power, wide view comes in handy.

[glowjet]

Keener, I think you will find that the advise from experienced Astronomers will be to try and afford one or two quality eye pieces and a good quality Barlow instead of the eye piece sets, as the saying goes many have been there and got the T shirt, often the end result being the retention of the case with the contents being sold or exchanged. This is not to say the eye pieces are not any good , far from it, but they can not be held in the same class as quality individual lenses from reputable manufacturers

John.

[Keener_7]

Thanks for your replies,

well what I was thinking was what Bart said, I could get a set now just to play with and test, (would like to know how far I could push this little 70mm..lol), and I don't really want to drop a lot of cash now on expensive EP's just in case this hobby does go out the window, but I don't think it will.

When I do upgrade I then will have a range of EP's to try and see which sizes suites me best for I get some quality ones in the same range.

We'll i'm off to do some more thinking and reading before I make any rash decisions.

[onesmallstep]

Hi and welcome to SGL

I've used the Celestron EPF kit since purchasing my first scope approx 5 years ago and its fine for general use. The only EP I've never used is the 4mm which is too powerful for the scopes I use.

As and when you upgrade kit it makes sense to upgrade the accessories. Have you read the Eyepiece sticky elsewhere on SGL as this will give you a few pointers. Depending on your budget go for a set of three EPS, one each of low, medium and high power. An eyepiece spread of 25-32mm, 12-18mm, and 6-10mm respectively will fit the bill

Get EPs that don't duplicate each other (e.g. a 10mm EP will give the same views as a barlowed 20mm EP so try to get EPs with apertures in between these). Add a moon filter and a 2x barlow and this should cover the majority of observing conditions. Again, search under the Eyepiece discussion sub-forum for threads relating to your enquiry, you could also try the search filter at the top of the website to refine your queries.

HTH!

[LukeSkywatcher]

The 8SE is a top quality scope and deserves better EP's then the Celestron EP kit.

The Vixen NPL range suit it perfectly.

The Celestron 70mm travelscope is a damn good scope but the tripod fails horribly at high mag.

You dont need high mag for the venus transit. Just a proper solar filter.

[Keener_7]

Thanks again,

I have been reading a lot on EP since posting and I'm learning a lot, this sure is a great forum!

I agree Luke, the travel scope 70 is a great little scope, it has exceeded my expectations to say the least. But as you said the the tripod is terrible, so luck for me we had had a sturdy one already at the house.

The scope came packaged with its own proper solar filter, and the sun looks great with the 20 and 10mm EP's provided giving me 20 and 40X mag. Now I just need the weather to cooperate, but as of now it calling for rain. That's that it goes I guess.