celestron eyepiece kit

[dhdeano]

Good evening all, ive been a member for a while but not been on here. Ive got an 8inch skywatcher with standard eyepieces that came with it. I recently taken the plunge a purchased some plossls as everone says they are so much better! I

ive managed to pick up a celestron kit which includes 5 plossls and seven lenses. As yet the weather is not playing nicely!!

Am i going to notice much differance when i do manage to get outside??

dean.

[dhdeano]

Oops! Sorry, mines not as big as i thought!! Its a 130p not 8 inch.

[baggywrinkle]

Which kit? They have a number of variants.

I bought their 5 piece kit and it is OK but not great.

The problem I found was that a kit is a compromise. The manufacturer tries to sell a complete trange of lenses some of which will be too powerfull for a particular OTA. Therefore some might never get used or only used under ideal conditions.

In order to sell a kit at an attractive price there will be a compromise on quality, eye relief etc. The kits I have seen do not give a full spec for what is provided.

On balance I wish I had waited. Since I bought my 6SE I have added a few better quality EP's more suited to it and the ED80 and not often used the kit lenses.

That said it should be an improvement on the stock EP's provided with many OTA's.

[Avocette]

Just to check - are you saying you have bought the Celestron kit as it comes new these days with 5 Plossls of 6mm, 8mm, 13mm, 17mm and 32mm, a 2x Barlow and seven filters (ND0.9 - for viewing the Moon, and 6 coloured ones)? If so, together with the 'Super' 10mm and 25mm eyepieces that came with the scope new, you have now got a very good range of magnifications to try out! With your (650mm focal length) scope this will give you from 20x to 108x and of course up to 216x with the Barlow as well. If you don't already use Stellarium, then you should download it and enter the data about your scope and the eyepieces and Barlow into the 'Ocular' plug-in. Then even if the clouds are overhead you can test out what the view should theoretically be like with the different combinations.

The eye relief on the 6mm is quite short but unless you wear glasses it should be OK. If you ultimately get to try your scope with wide angle eyepieces of higher quality (and significantly higher prices) you'll start to understand that with an F5 scope like yours you will see some 'seagulls' near the edge of the field of view with your Plossls. So stay within the centre 60-70% of the FOV and enjoy!    

[Donkeiller]

The Celestron kit is good to start off with. I had one.

Since then I have upgraded my EPs to BSTs and XCel-LXs, sold off most of the kit, except the 32mm- which is quite good and also keep the case.