New Eyepieces Help Please!

[conor0072]

i've recently bought a skywatcher 130 with eq2 mount and only been using the lenses that came with it, which i believe to be basic. Looking to by new lenses to help me see more than jupiter and the moon. Just tried having a look at mars and saturn and wasn't the best view. Can anyone give me any tips if i'm doing something wrong or advise me on good lenses to buy? don't have a particular high budget 

[sbooder]

Don't be too down on the EPs you have, Mars is notoriously hard to get good views of, even with better EPs.  And both Mars and Saturn are still low which means mixed with the bad seeing at the moment the views will be limited.  I am not sure how long you have been using your scope but if it is only a few times you will have to get your eye in (as it is called), the more times you get to use your scope the better you will see things.

But as to a question on new EPs. with the SW 130 you do not want anything too fancy, I would suggest the Revelation EPs good quality Plossl EPs, and a good quality 2 x Barlow.

Others there who have a 130 will let you know which power of EPs work best with the scope but I would go for a good 10mm, 17mm and 26mm but I am not sure if the 130 could take too much more, maybe the 32mm?

[ronin]

From past experience Jupiter needs at least 60x and 80x should show a reasonable amount.

Saturn you are looking at 100x and I recall a nice view at 125x

Mars really is small and you need (from various posts) 200x and above, meaning 250x +.

You should get Jupiter and Saturn, however I suspect Mars will be beyond the scope.

The above are sort of minimums and based on what I have seen, I do not try for the greatest possible magnification so when others say they have managed 200x on Saturn they may well have, I have never bothered. Also I use refractors, not reflectors, mention this as there will be some minor differences.

Depending on the performance you may have to consider eyepiece upgrades, simply if the ones you have do not work then no amount of looking through them will improve the situation. Better if you could borrow an eyepiece or two to determine what you think. Be realistic about magnification - a 5x barlow and a 5mm EP will go in, just will not work.

[wookie1965]

The BST starguider are brilliant eyepieces for £49 you cant go wrong the Celestron X-Cel`s get good reviews as well they are a bit more expensive about £65 and 8mm in the BST will give you great views of Jupiter,Saturn and Mars. Mars you could go a bit more but seeing conditions would have to be very good.

[hippie]

BST's from Sky's unlimited on ebay are great lenses if you are on a tight budget!, Alan is also very helpful and will give you a refund if you are not happy with your purchases!.

I use the 25mm 18mm 12mm BST's often still even though i have Televue lenses  . 

[Qualia]

i've recently bought a skywatcher 130....Looking to by new lenses to help me see more than jupiter and the moon.....Can anyone give me any tips....

For Lunar work, all magnifications offer up something to be amazed by. Low powers help frame the Moon, mid-range frames craters and seas and mountain ranges and the high-power helps tweak out subtle features like terraces, tiny craters, ray grazes etc.

For Jupiter, I typically use mags between 140x to just over 200x. I have gone to 250x on a number of occasions but generally find I'm working between 180x to 200x in the 10" and between 140x to 160x in the 4".

For Saturn - Again I have found 140x to over 200x useful mags to play around with. You can go higher here, but a lot will depend on the night's atmospheric conditions.

For Mars, I figure Jupiter is about 3x the size of Mars and to see Jupiter nicely is, say, at around 200x which means that for me to get a 'similar' view of Mars I need 600x. Well, I'm just not going to get that kind of viewing quality. So, I figure a compromise is needed, say, around 250x which still means seeing conditions will have to be very good. As such, I haven't found Mars a particularly giving planet.

Other than that, in general, try to view the given object as close to the zenith as possible and bear in mind that as a general rule of thumb the brightness of an object will decline as you up the magnification. If I up the mag twofold, say, I'm reducing the image brightness by a factor of four. If I keep on doing this eventually details just disappear.

Now comes a word of caution. A 5" f/5 is not an ideal planetary scope. Being of such a short focal length, it relies on very short focal length (FL) eyepieces to gain significant magnification. A longer FL telescope allows one to use longer FL eyepieces, which in turn would give one more eye relief making viewing a more comfortable possibility.

As you'll appreciate, magnification is equal to the telescope's FL divided by the EP's FL. So, if I wanted to enjoy Jupiter, for example, at around an average night's viewing of 140x to 160x, I'd need an eyepiece of around 4mm to 4.5mm. I often view Saturn around 160x to 200x, so if this were the same for you, we'd need FL EP's around 4mm to 3.3mm.

Here, then, I'd recommend either:

• a zoom eyepiece of decent quality of between 3-6mm (a TV could be picked up for around £250)
• a decent Barlow which in effect helps double your EP collection whilst giving you the choice of buying a little longer FL eyepiece (say an 8mm giving you a hand in viewing DSOs and lunar work) and retaining its longer eye relief
• a 60º field EP of around 4mm which due to its wider field will be easier to track your object and finally
• an ortho of around the same focal length. 

Looking at those kind of options, it might also be an idea to appreciate your scope as a lovely optical system well suited to low power wide fields views. So another option could be to save for a longer focal length and perhaps bigger aperture scope rather than forking out hard-earned cash on eyepieces. My own personal feeling on this, just looking at the numbers, is that if you want to do some serious planetary viewing, you will be pushing your system and eyes in the 5" f/5. This is not to dump on your scope in any fashion, you have a beautifully crafted wide-field scope and these telescopes can look at planets all the time but whatever our telescope, I think it is always helpful to the soul and mind to have reasonable expectations of what is realistically possible.

I hope this helped a little

[wookie1965]

Qualia that is very comprehensive and im sure anybody reading this will find it very useful i have and i been using my scope for nearly two years and have several eyepieces.

[conor0072]

thanks for all the feedback guys great help will let you know how i get on in the future.

maybe i can give you guys a bit more detail about myself which will help you point me further in the right direction.

i bought the scope about a month ago now, and used it as much as i could (weather permitting). First i decided to look at the moon as its rather larger therefore easy to find. Found that relatively easily so moved on a tried to find Jupiter and was again successful. Therefore the reason for this post is because i believe i have "got the most out of" the lenses that came with the scope (2X Barlow Lens, Super 10mm & Super 25 Wide Angle Long Eye Relief)  when viewing Jupiter i can all the moons and see a quite distorted view is this due to the lenses and what should i do to view things like galaxies, is that possible with my scope, or am i jumping in with that way to soon?

Thanks Again guys really appreciate your help

Conor

[russ]

The distortion could be down to the mirrors in the scope not being aligned (collimated) rather than the eyepieces. If that's the case even the best eypieces in the world will not help. Collimation is one of those things that scares the hell out of newbies and seasoned folk alike. But its not all that bad. Some good tutorials around, including a very easy to follow video style tutorial by Andy Shotglass:

http://www.andysshotglass.com/Collimating.html

The good news is Galaxies, Nebula and Clusters are all perfectly good targets for your telescope and are far more forgiving on cheaper eyepieces. In fact no real reason to change the 25mm you have, perfectly fit for purpose. And the eyepiece you'll want to use for hunting them down. The 10mm will also be fine for looking at the smaller galaxies and nebula.

As for the planets:

Jupiter - doesn't really need anymore than 150x and a lot of nights the atmosphere will struggle with this power. 

Saturn - still looks good, even at lower powers of 100x+

Mars - just pile it on. As much magnification as you can throw at it. People get all tentative about the magnification, forget what applies to Saturn and Jupiter, just give it what ever you can with Mars. I start with 300x and go up from there. Its quite high in the sky and takes high mag better than the others. I had a look just before xmas at 400x in our Celestron C6 and teased out the polar cap plus a dark marking.

The BST is a great eyepiece and the 5mm will give you 130x, which is plenty for Jupiter and Saturn. You could barlow this to give 260x and see how it looks. Certainly Mars will repay for going up this high but the other two may not. Sometimes, especially when starting out, you think if you give it more power the view will improve. But it does the reverse instead and just degrades. Quite often the best view is at the lower power. It just a case of experimenting each night and see where the limit lies.

[conor0072]

thanks for all the help guys, you've all taught me something new

purchased an 8mm BST to begin with so going to start from there and see how i get on

[SW130p]

I just got the 8mm BST and using it with a 2x Barlow and getting great views with Jupiter and Saturn. Just make sure the scope has cooled properly. I didn't the other night and got fuzzy views till it cooled for around an hour.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TheWelshMagician]

Best and cheapest place to get eyepieces is here...http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/skies_unlimited/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=