Advise please on our next purchase

[Fypunky]

But don't tell the wife!

As some of you are aware my daughter is getting into this astronomy and I am being sucked in too.

So for crimbo she will open the following..

Celestron Astromaster 130eq

the celestron astro kit ( 15mm kellner, 6mm plossl, 2x barlow and three filters)

So my question of which I welcome your advise is as follows...

Do I buy a Skywatcher Planetary eyepiece (thinking of the 4mm) or would I be better of buying a UHC filter to increase the contrast etc of nebula?

Cheers

PunKy

[paul mc c]

If it was me i would get a good star atlas and a red light first,the eyepieces that you have will be ok until she gets used to the scope,the 4mm will be a lot of power and may not get used much.A wider fl eyepiece would be a better choice,around 28mm,this will give you a nice wide field of view,good for finding things easier and great for open clusters ect.

[Fypunky]

Cheers Paul

We have the star maps etc already as we are using 10x50 bins at the moment, she has no idea about the telescope. I was also thinking of replacing the stock 20mm supplied with a better quality plossl, was thinking of either a 20mm or 25mm.

Thanks for your opinion, more food for thought.

[lestergibson]

if it were me, I'd stick with the 6mm and forget about the 4mm for a bit and the filter too. I would upgrade the 15mm to one of better quality because you might find that you'll end up using the 15mm more often than the 6mm.  The Kellner design isn't too hot and probably wouldn't perform at all well in most scopes and especially not in a F5 scope.

[rwilkey]

Hi Punky, I would be inclined to see how she gets on with what you have already bought. I would also recommend buying astro stuff from a proper astro supplier rather than places like Amazon, you tend to get better stuff and a better choice, as well as good advice.  On the eyepiece front, i would suggest a low-power ep to start, such as a 32mm or 25mm. A 4mm would be too much magnification for UK skies in my view.

[dag123]

Hi,

For what it is worth my most-used EP is the 32mm that came with my eye-piece kit. I no-longer bother with the red-dot-finder, rather just sight along the length of the scope with the 32mm in place and most often than not I get what I am looking for somewhere in the large-field-of-view. I then centre and add magnification as required. Although I do use my 5mm EP to split the double-double and try and spot those difficult targets in the Trapezium, in most cases I find 10mm gives a clearer, albeit smaller image.

dag123

[Alfian]

I ahve the 130EQ - I would be cautious about getting sucked into the big magnification thing. I bought a 3x Barlow for mine and I just never use it. Anything over 100x and the slightest wobble (which takes a few seconds to calm down will also be magnified. Similarly at 100+ the moon for instance moves oot of the viewfinder quickly -

[Alfian]

Sorry about that - computer blinked! to continue - and although with the EQ mount you can track it with the slomos - it gets more difficult with higher powers. Much more viewing is done at less than 100x - so I would wait a while until you get a better idea of what you enjoy lookiing at and then go for better quality eyepiece in the appropriate range. Interestingly, given lestergibsons comments, the most used eyepiece on my 130EQ is my Vixen 15mm. Given that the 130 is an F5 a good 25mm will never be out of the way as a finder. Celestron newish X-Cel LX looks good especially given the 60 degree afov which will give a 2.3 fov. Speaking of finders - you may discover that the finder supplied with the 130EQ is not as easy to use as maybe it should be, so something like the Rigel Quickfinder  helps considerably. Hope it goes well.

[Fypunky]

Many many thanks for the excellent advice, I can see us getting sucked into this wanting to see all that's out there. I think for the time being we will stick to our original plan and get a half decent 25mm to replace the stock 20mm and take it from there.