Cheap and cheerful vs costly eyepieces and a big dob. A first light will follow...

[astrorabbit]

So I've been busy generating clouds with my wallet and acquisition syndrome.

Some nice ep's and a big dob have put a cap on my feeding habits for a few months...

So here's a question, why in the recent poor transparency nights in London have my cheap eps outperformed the good stuff?

For example, comparing a 16mm nirvana vs a Celestron zoom at roughly 16mm the zoom had much better results...

A friend said the good ones magnify everything including the terrible conditions and I have to agree with him.

Is it something to do with fov or just optical quality?

I'm waiting for all my new kit to arrive due to misleading stock indication and a good nights observing for my first light report... With pictures

Cheers!

[John]

I've moved this thread to the eyepieces section as I assume it will result in a report on eyepiece performance.

I've left a link in the original place though, so that folks can find it from there too  

It would be great if your report could include a comparison of these eyepieces under good conditions as well as not so good ones, for the sake of completeness. I understand that might not be easy though 

[astrorabbit]

Cheers John! Wasn't too sure where it would fit in...

Reports will follow once I've been treated to a good night with the dob and its ep bling, I'll let the euphoria wear off to keep things unbiased

[John]

Cheers John! Wasn't too sure where it would fit in...

Reports will follow once I've been treated to a good night with the dob and its ep bling, I'll let the euphoria wear off to keep things unbiased

It's worth giving things a few sessions from my experience. The reports I put on here are generally after a couple of months use as conditions can make such a difference to the performance you get.

But any feedback is interesting of course 

[ronin]

Two thoughts come to mind:

The scope is the limiting factor, so any eyepiece will perform poorly immaterial of cost.

The comparison could be taking in the wider field of the Nirvana which is not present in the Celestron zoom. If the Nirvana has say a 70 degree view it is no good comparing the outer 50-70 section if the zoom stops at 45 degrees.

[crashtestdummy]

I'm guessing field of view too.I got better contrast in light polluted skies with 70° eyepieces as apposed to 82° and 100° eyepieces.