Eyepiece Advice Please

[ramstar]

As an owner of a 200 dob, I have added to the standard 10mm & 25mm with a 32mm Panaview & 8mm Hyperion. Given my disappointment with the 10mm I have a few questions please.

As an alternative to the 10mm, should I consider an 11mm or 14mm?

Would I be wasting money going for a 6mm or even 5mm for planetary viewing?

Given what appears to be some cracking deals doing the rounds in the USA on ES 82* eyepieces ($99), would these give noticeably better images than for example, the BST Starguider eyepieces?

[Qualia]

Eyepieces are a knotty issue, Ramstar and there will be those far more knowledgeable and gifted to answer your enquiry than myself but let me give it a stab.

This is a really useful guide to begin with and I guess you can frame that guide by the discriminator of what kind of FOV you are most interested in.

I don't have a lot of experience with f/5s but with my own I think a nice medium power option would be an 11 or 12mm EP, perhaps with an 82º apparent field eyepiece. I've read that the ES 82 is a cut above the mid-range BST, Hyperion, X-Cel LX EPs and some folk say it is almost as good as a Nagler.

Personally, I feel the 5mm would be pretty much redundent as a planetary EP in the f/5 and if you didn't have another high power EP to play around with, the 6mm is pushing you at the edge of what our general atmospheric conditions will allow along the course of a year and may not always be useable. For this reason, I'd go for something like a 9mm or 7mm and then build around that range.

[jabberwocky]

I use a 5mm and 7mm with my 200dob, so not wasted at all, they both give great views of planets, seeing allowing. Some nights 7mm is as high a mag as you can push it but other nights will allow for the 5mm to be used. I need a 6 mm to bridge the gap but that will have to wait until I've moved to rural Dorset and hopefully darker skies.

id replace the 10mm with a higher quality 10mm as x120 is a great mag for lots of objects.

With an undriven mount like a dob its good to gets planetary eps with as wide a field of view as possible, that way the object stays in view longer between nudges making longer viewing easier.

[Apollo Paul]

why not purchase a 17mm hyperion and the fine tuning rings 14mm and 28mm.

this will give you plenty of different mags including 200x with the 14mm tuning ring

added to your 8mm baader hyperion.

Microsoft Word - HyperionZoom-ShortInstructionsWP.doc - hyperion_brief_description_e.pdf

Baader Hyperion Fine Tuning Ring 14mm

[ramstar]

As I expected - good practical advice - this forum is priceless to beginners like me!

With the fine tuning rings,is there a reduction in quality and if so, would it be that noticeable compared with the equivalent standard eyepiece?

[cyborg421]

I didn't like the Hyperions with my f4.7 Dob. The smaller the f number the less forgiving the scope is on eyepieces.

If you can join a local group and try some out before you buy.

Buy once and buy the best you can afford even if it means building up your collection a little slower than you'd like.

I've gone for Televue but I realise they are not in everyone's budget.

Simon

[Stargazer_00]

The reason you get a 10mm and 25mm is because they are useful. Id Replace them. I bought many eyepieces before i got around to replacing my 10 because I thought I had a 10 already. When I got my 10mm luminos I wish id got it ages ago. Use it all the time when beforei never used the supplied one