Best/Favourite EyePiece

[ve1drg]

Wondering if anyone has a favourite eyepiece that is used when observing.  What I mean by that,  is a lower power eyepiece our favourite.  Something that always starts our evenings.  Or do we simply just go to the higher power ones to avoid wasting time.

I know that to start off an evening of observing that maybe we want to have a more wide angle  field of view  so a lower power eyepiece would be the way to go.  But after that - do most people just stay with the  lower power for more relaxed viewing?   I find that there is a need now and than to go to the higher power but I find for the most part that I view at a magnification of something just short of 100x.  I use the Esprit 120 Skywatcther scope  and something around 70x or so seems really nice.    In fact it seems that my ethos 17mm eyepiece is the one I enjoy the most.

Anyway - just wondering if most people share the thought of viewing at lower power rather than jumping to the maximum limits of the scope.

[hunterknox]

Good question.

My first instinct after getting a scope was to buy the highest power eyepiece I could use with it, which I'd guess is a classic but understandable mistake.

The eyepiece I get the most use and enjoyment out of is my lowest powered one. These days even when I do want to look at planets I rarely use a magnification over 180x.

[Big_Daz]

I personally always use my 32mm Plossl first for general viewing and finding objects, it has a 52^o apparent field of view which gives 2.56^o FOV @ 20.3x mag in my Heritage 130p, however I have a 7.5mm - 22.5mm Seben zoom eyepiece for Christmas and I think this will be a very close second.

[sbijdc]

I'd agree. I enjoy using the low power. It makes finding those faint fuzzies a bit easier.

[pvaz]

The low power EP always starts the evening and usually it's the one that stays on the scope for longer periods.

The main reason for that is that I'm more into DSOs than solar system objects. 

When I'm observing solar system objects I use mostly 100x up to 240x magnification (that's roughly 12mm to 5mm on my scope).

[RT65CB-SWL]

For me it is my TeleVue 6mm Radian

or the 3-6mm Nagler zoom.

[Naemeth]

I almost always stay in low power. On some nights' the 24mm Panoptic never leaves the focuser.

[bambuko]

Sky Watcher PanaView 2", 32mm without a doubt (or something very similar) , used with my 6" reflector.

It's not perfect, but for the money it the best you can get for total immersion in space

Similarly 1.25", 32mm SP for my finderscope has totally transformed it for use when finding my way round.

Don't get me wrong - I love my high magnification pieces as well, but there is nothing more relaxing and pleasing  than loitering around with low power and wide angle!

[avtaram]

Baader 8-24 zoom get used the most and then the Panaview 38mm

Avtar

[Andy_E]

As its open cluster season the 19mm panoptic is spending most time in the scope I think... though the 14mm ES will probably overtake it as we shift to the winter galaxies.

[ScottS]

My 18mm BST great for lots of things.

[Chris]

My 28mm ES Maxvison, absolutely love it!

[David_Pickles]

My Skywatcher Panaview 32mm gives some great wide field field views.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[catman161]

My televue ethos 13mm is the eyepiece of choice every time for me

[rowan46]

low power for me, my delos 12mm  40x is most used and for open clusters 24mm maxvision 20x

[chiltonstar]

My 32mm Plossl to start with to find the object, then if it's a double, out comes the BST 8mm to give x190.

Chris

[The_PSY3NTIST]

Similar to many.. Start with the orion 32mm then flick between 18mm + 9mm x-cel usually. Can't beat low mag though

[acey]

32mm TeleVue plossl to find the object, then a Baader 8-24mm zoom to view it at higher power. Sometimes I also use a Speers Waler 5-8mm zoom or a 4mm Nirvana for high-power views. Those are the only eyepieces I ever use. (DSO viewing at a dark site with 12" flextube). I have them in a Baader Q-Turret for quick change.

[RikM]

It varies for me but I generally find that 'one' eyepiece will be 'best' on any given night. More often than not it's my 14mm Pentax XW which gives 86x, a 0.82° field, and a 3mm exit pupil.

[jetstream]

I can spend all night with the 16mm Nagler or 17mm Ethos,they seem to be in a real sweet spot for me on DSO, for planetary/lunar the 8mm Delos sits in the focuser.

[John]

It depends on the scope I'm using, the target and the conditions so lots of variables.

I find my 6mm Ethos and 5mm Pentax XW get lots of use in all my scopes for higher power viewing.

The 13mm Ethos delivers medium powers in two of my scopes but is a lower power eyepiece in the other two. Either way it gets a lot of use on a wide range of deep sky objects.

My 20mm 100 degree Explore Scientific tends to be used over the 31mm Nagler for low power / wide field viewing of larger DSO's as it shows a darker background sky most of the time.

Thats 4 favourites 

[YKSE]

Baader 31mm and HR5mm sit in focuser most of time when aligning, AERO 40mm for max FOV, MVs for more rich field views depending on object size, and BCOs for most critical/difficult objects. When splitting doubles, many EPs are used to find out the minimum mag. Like tonight, a short session out with 80ED on Castor, used all the EPs from 6mm down to 15mm, the excellent seeing enabled the double be splitted with 12mm in 50X, which is far lower mag than I've ever made.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Night-time I always start out with the Nagler 31T5 "Panzerfaust" for those amazing wide views. It then depends entirely what I am observing. For planets the XW10, XW7 and XF8.5 are top notch (haven't been able to use the Delos 8 on planets yet), for deep sky, the Panzerfaust stays put for star-hopping, and as needed the 22T4 (also my favourite) and 17T4 (another favourite) are inserted. When looking at planetaries, the 12T4 often takes the driving seat, and for supernovae, I like to use the XWs again. I swap about a lot, and almost every observing session I use 4 or 5 EPs to get the best match to object and seeing conditions

For solar I start out with the 24mm MaxVision, and move up to 12T4 and if seeing allows XW10 or XF8.5. I am hoping to get some intermediate EPs like the MaxVision 20mm 68 deg and Delos 14 to fill the gaps

[lunator]

For widefield views a sue my 24mm Hyperion but for splitting doubles I always have a soft spot for my 12,5mm ortho 

[forasibi]

Although I'm becoming quite fond of my recently acquired ES 30mm 82FoV, I keep going back to my 18mm ortho volcano top I've had since the 80's.  It started with the 6" f8 newt., but, to my surprise, it works quite well with my 9.25 on planetary nebula - M57 is a real treat in dark skies.  Some eyepieces just become a sweet spot across all your scopes.