SW Lens kit offer

[Din]

Hi

I spotted an advert on the optical vision web site for a Skywatcher kit containing :-

7.5mm, 12.5mm, 17mm & 20mm Super Plossl Eyepieces, Four Threaded Light Filters (Amber, Blue, Neutral Grey & Moon Filter) Dual - Beam LED Night Vision Torch, Astronomical Telescope User Guide, in lockable, foam-padded Aluminium Case

The whole thing is going for £79 for people who have just purchased a SW or Tal telescope. Is this a good deal or would I be better off getting individual eyepieces. Just purchased a 150 Evostar with 10 mm and 25 mm eyepieces, both seem to be of low quality.

Cheers

Ed

[John]

Hi Ed,

I'm not normally a fan of these kits as often some of the components are not much use, depending on the scope you have.

However, this one seems to offer pretty good value and the eyepieces would be a step up from the ones supplied with the scope. The filters might be some use (some folks use them and some don't) and the red torch will be useful.

So for £79 I have to say it's not a bad deal for your scope. You might want to add a further low power / wide field eyepiece to the set in due course, eg: a 32mm plossl or even a 2" 32mm eyepiece for even wider views.

[Din]

Thanks John

Is it always the case that 2" eyepiece is better than the 1.25 " eyepiece? Or just for when wider views at lower mags are required?

I've just bought a 6 mm 50 degree Celestron eyepiece for 200x mag and have noticed the aperture is very small compared to the 10 & 25 eyepieces that came with the scope. Not sure how I will get on with this - continuous cloud cover has prevented me from trying it out.

Ed

[John]

The 2" eyepiece size just allows wider views than 1.25" eyepieces - thats their main advantage really. With the plossl and orthoscopic eyepiece designs the eye lens does get smaller as the focal length gets shorter. The distance that your eye needs to be from the top lens gets shorter too which can making using eyepieces of this type in focal lengths shorter than around 8mm quite challenging. There are other eyepiece designs that are more comfortable to look through such as the BST Explorers. These do cost a bit more though - £40-50 per eyepiece.

[rwilkey]

Hi Ed, just to add to the discussion, I bought this set off of Ebay, a bit cheaper still, when the set had the LET style of eyepieces, have to say I love the set and still use it, and I bought the two missing ep's from the set, so impressed at the time. I believe now the set comes with the LER version of the ep which I understand are good, but could't find the exact set you refer to, to check on the Optical Vision website. So yes, I say go for it, it's very good value I think.