Eyepiece upgrade

[Denni]

Evening folks,

hope you are all well.

A while back out telescope was stolen, a Skywatcher 127, but we replaced it with something more manageable and quicker to use for the family, a Skywatcher 705 (mainly because it was a lot simpler and our 4 year old daughter could use it quite easily).

Anyway, I digress. It has the "standard" 25 and 10 mm eyepieces which are actually quite good, in my limited experience that is :0)

Would like to upgrade them so my neighbour gave me a Super Plossl 17 mm which is excellent but I'd like to get possiby a 9mm or 10mm Plossl and was just after advice.  Can anyone offer me any advice on upgrades and if I need to upgrade? I have about £40 sitting idely in my paypal account and already have a Barlow Lens.

Also, I am a complete amateur so can someone also explain what the need would be for bigger or smaller mm eyepieces such as 30 mm and 4/6 mm etc etc. I don't intend buying any but was just curious. I'm assuming further distances and finer detail?

Apologies for all the questions and just for reference, we only use the scope to really look at the moon and haven't had a chance yet but would like to look at Saturns rings and Jupiters moons and cloud belts which are apparently very easily seen with the supplied "standard" eyepieces.

Thanks in advance foilks, just need the clouds to disappear and get into the garden!

All the best, Den

[wookie1965]

The BST starguider get very good reviews as do the Celestron X-Cels and 8mm BST from Skys the limit would cost £49 the X-Cels about the same the 8mm BST is a great eyepiece i have one fantastic for the moon and planets.

[ronin]

On a 127 Mak the 8mm might be a little too much to use on the majority of occasions, nice eyepiece and when conditiona allow it would be good, but the conditions may not occur everytime you take the scope out.

The BST 12mm and likely the 15mm may be a better option.

The 12mm should give about 125x and the 15mm 100x.

Either of these will be good on Jupiter and the 125x (12mm EP) should be OK on Saturn.

For both I think that lower magnification but a sharper image is better as detail is often wanted not plain size.

Problem of a 127 Mak is that you will always end up with magnification and less field of view, the focal length make the scope bias towards that.

The 25mm BST will deliver the same filed of view as a 30mm plossl.

Really collecting the 25mm, 18mm, 15mm and 12mm BST's would make a sensible option.

The X-Cels have a slighter better selection of eyepieces at the lower focal lengths but with the 127 I cannot see any real advantage in them being there. The 8mm BST would give 187x the 7mm X-Cel would give 214x. Question then would be is the 9mm XC be useful.

The BST's are £49, the X-Cel are £65. I would suggest sticking to one set, they look nicer in a group and eyepieces within a set tend to be reasonably par-focal.

[Denni]

Hi Ronin,

many thanks for the concise reply.

Haven't changed my details, the 127 was stolen so we now have a Skywatcher 705 which I don't know a lot about other than it is so far excellent and really easy to use.

So our scope has a focal length of 500mm and a 70mm aperture so I'm presuming that certain mm lenses would be better?

I realise these are probably fairly simple questions but it is all a wee bit of a mnefield until you get your head around the figures. (Was never good at mths!)

Thanks in advance again, Den