eye p's

[RikM]

 the scope has already delivered to the focal point, the eyepiece cant interfere with that, it can only use whats there, and  If that delivery  is inferior in anyway, the lens really cant help that much, 

As you say it is opinions and observations, with this statement though, my opinion is a little different. Better quality eyepieces certainly do seem to improve on the view you can get.

With external forces like poor seeing, you are perfectly correct, and unfortunately they have yet to invent an eyepiece that can see through clouds, But some eyepieces are better able to correct for some telescope aberrations. Most reputable starter scopes are far better than most starter eyepieces. The 200P Skyliner is definitely in that category; fantastic value for money. I have used the Meade equivalent in the past with a range of eyepieces from Meade Plossls, through Baader Hyperions and also with Pentax XW's. They were all pretty good; it is a good telescope, but they were all a bit better than each other. The Plossls were nice and sharp, the Hyperions were very comfortable to use, the Pentax were as comfortable yet sharper again, with more contrast and better control of light scatter.

I used to wonder if a certain telescope price range was only 'worth' spending a certain amount on eyepieces. I have found quite the opposite is true, good eyepieces can make the most average telescope sing. I quite often use a little ST80. With the kit EP's it is pretty average, with the XW's it is marvellous.

All we can do is speak of our own observations and opinions You think what you think and that's as it should be; there is no right and wrong when it comes opinion. Lots of people praise the BST eyepieces and these are quite probably the best recommendation for the OP. I have to say that I have look at them, but never through them so can't really offer informed advice on how they perform. 

[Charic]

Beardy30.....( RikM )... cheers Rik, all noted, i`ll take your experience and views on-board for future reference.

[Naemeth]

As you say it is opinions and observations, with this statement though, my opinion is a little different. Better quality eyepieces certainly do seem to improve on the view you can get.

With external forces like poor seeing, you are perfectly correct, and unfortunately they have yet to invent an eyepiece that can see through clouds, But some eyepieces are better able to correct for some telescope aberrations. Most reputable starter scopes are far better than most starter eyepieces. The 200P Skyliner is definitely in that category; fantastic value for money. I have used the Meade equivalent in the past with a range of eyepieces from Meade Plossls, through Baader Hyperions and also with Pentax XW's. They were all pretty good; it is a good telescope, but they were all a bit better than each other. The Plossls were nice and sharp, the Hyperions were very comfortable to use, the Pentax were as comfortable yet sharper again, with more contrast and better control of light scatter.

I used to wonder if a certain telescope price range was only 'worth' spending a certain amount on eyepieces. I have found quite the opposite is true, good eyepieces can make the most average telescope sing. I quite often use a little ST80. With the kit EP's it is pretty average, with the XW's it is marvellous.

All we can do is speak of our own observations and opinions You think what you think and that's as it should be; there is no right and wrong when it comes opinion. Lots of people praise the BST eyepieces and these are quite probably the best recommendation for the OP. I have to say that I have look at them, but never through them so can't really offer informed advice on how they perform. 

+1

I used to think, when I only had my 130P that it was pointless spending half the cost of the scope with one eyepiece (a TeleVue plossl), but they are used on all of my scopes, so per scope it works out at about £10.

Quality equipment does make a difference, why pay a lot of money for one component and not another? The view at the eyepiece is limited to what the weakest component can offer, the best mirror can look average in a bad eyepiece.

Perhaps I can explain it better with wine. You can pay a little for 'value' or 'budget' wine and sure it's nice, it gets you intoxicated and all that. But when you pay more for a nice wine, you like the taste, you might really like the taste. If you do - what is wrong with that? Those that want the cheap wine will get it, but those who get the expensive wine often don't do it just because it's more expensive, they do it because they like the expensive wine more.

HTH

[Pig]

Its a tricky one, hence many different styles of answers

It rather depends on what you want to view, if your like me then I like to view everything so a good spread is required ( as per John's LV eyepiece suggestions )

For example:-

The moon can take very high magnification on good nights,easily 300 x,  Whereas the double cluster is around 80 x (in my scope)

[bingevader]

+1

I used to think, when I only had my 130P that it was pointless spending half the cost of the scope with one eyepiece (a TeleVue plossl), but they are used on all of my scopes, so per scope it works out at about £10.

Quality equipment does make a difference, why pay a lot of money for one component and not another? The view at the eyepiece is limited to what the weakest component can offer, the best mirror can look average in a bad eyepiece.

Perhaps I can explain it better with wine. You can pay a little for 'value' or 'budget' wine and sure it's nice, it gets you intoxicated and all that. But when you pay more for a nice wine, you like the taste, you might really like the taste. If you do - what is wrong with that? Those that want the cheap wine will get it, but those who get the expensive wine often don't do it just because it's more expensive, they do it because they like the expensive wine more.

HTH

To a point.... 

Firstly, as I've been saying for a while now (and probably annoying, or boring people to death), I think people should get the best they can afford. That goes with wine as well as EPs.

On the wine front, personally, I won't spend more than £7 or £8 on a bottle, because after that, I can't taste the difference. Also I've tasted some £35 a bottle wines that have been absolute stinkers. And, that's not to mention the declassified wines or those that have exceeded the allotted quota. We're drinking some very fine £8 "Chateauneuf" at the moment.

However, as with wines, the EP cost/performance(taste) ratio is a sigmoid curve. If you want to squeeze the last few degrees and photons out of your set up then by all means get the best. The greatest improvement will always be in the middle ground.

But no, I wouldn't spend nearly twice the price of my 'scope on an EP, personally, I don't think the improvements at the EP would be worth it.

Back to the OP: As I said before, I wouldn't get the 5mm. It will be lovely on the moon and planets from a dark site when conditions are great, but most of the time it will be sat in its case at home. I was going to suggest the Vixen NPLs, but you must consider the eye relief which will be tight at lower FLs. Some don't mind this, some do. Try one if you can, before you buy!

Cheers

[Qualia]

On the wine front, personally, I won't spend more than £7 or £8 on a bottle, because after that, I can't taste the difference.

Arrr, Bingevader, we'll have to head out and do some days and nights of wine appreciation. I think I just had my best red this weekend which I bought a while back at a winery. Every sip was like a kiss from the ancient angels, scintillatingly sensual in an elegantly understated way. The bottles were a little pricey (think it was the same red enjoyed by the prince and princess of Spain when they married) but...In vino veritas...

Sorry for taking the OP way of course

[bingevader]

In Spain? I await the invitation! 

[laowho]

Hi Beardy,

Can't speak to specific brands from my wrong side of the pond, but I can speak to what we did for our build and why where your scope and ours are similar...yours is also f/6 and with 2" focuser, yes? In which case we knew certain things...

...that we'd want at least one 2" low power wide field EP for the obvious reasons...

...that at f/6 we could use more affordable, less "uber-corrected" EPs and neither would we need a Paracorr...

...that "uber-corrected" "uber-premium" EPs are corrected for "faster" (f/5 and below) mirrors which exhibit more coma, but they're also corrected for their wider apparent fields of view (say 72 degrees and above?)...

...that we could save some $$ at the low power end because these tend to be more forgiving...

...that our usual observing conditions for light pollution meant that we wouldn't often be able to use the 2" LPWF EP...

...and that we wanted to follow a 1.5x magnification progression/spacing as per Roger Clark's "Optimum Magnified Visual Angle" formula for observing DSOs...

We have fairly typical skies light-pollution-wise, so we can't usually use an EP that produces more than a 4mm exit pupil--we usually use our 24 mm 68 degree EP ( a 4mm exit pupil) which, because of it's little bit higher magnification, produces a darker background sky for better viewing. And because it's a 1.25" EP, we then Barlow it for a 16mm EP. Our next natural progression then was a 12mm EP (we got a deal on 11mm so that's what we use), and Barlowing this takes us down to a 7.33mm EP at 240x, which is pretty much the atmospheric limit to what we can use most nights.

Basically, on most nights (atmospheric transparency and seeing) and at most places (light pollution), we only ever use two EPs and a Barlow, and even Al Nagler has said that this is all anyone "really" needs.

Cheers

[Rob63]

+1 from me for BST's

I am using them with a 200P Dob and find them to be a big step up from the supplied EP's

[Tonys]

I bought the Revelation Astro eyepiece set to go with my 200P and have found them to be much better than the 25 and 10mm modified achromat ones that came with the scope. They also cover a good magnification range and give a reasonable field of view. The 2 element barlow suffers from false colour and is inferior to my Tal one, but for my vision the Revelation EP's generally stand up well to comparison with my Tal EP's. The exception is the Tal 25mm, which always seems somehow more "comfortable" in use than the others. I don't have any expensive EP's but I imagine this viewing comfort aspect is significant.