Baader Aspheric 31mm plus......

[The BFJ]

Hi guys and girls,

I've recently bought a S/W 200P and, I have to say, I love it. It's a big beast to lug about but worth the effort. I was hoping for a bit of advice about eyepieces tho. I've already concluded the ones that come with the scope are barely adequate and have started my upgrading with Celestron X-CEL LX's (7mm and 18mm). At the moment I'm planning to add a Baader Hyperion Aspheric 31mm for deep-sky cluster viewing but am not sure whether or not to also add an X-CEL 25mm or get a 12mm instead? I'm not sure my budget will stretch to both and am not convinced I'd need both either but would welcome your views.

I'll be adding an X-CEL LX 2x Barlow as soon as they're back available. It seems everywhere is out of these atm .

Jon

[John]

Hi Jon and welcome to the forum 

I'm not sure you will need a 25mm X-Cel LX and the 31mm Aspheric to be honest. You may well find the jump from the 18mm X-Cel to the 31mm Aspheric is not that huge. 

I assume you will be using the 31mm Aspheric in 2" mode ? It's a nice eyepiece but I find the 1.25" barrel option not really worth bothering with as it reduces the field of view (as you would expect) and creates a fuzzy edge to the field which is not to my taste at least.

[The BFJ]

Hi John,

thanks for that and yes, I was planning to use the Baader in 2in form. Do you think it's worth geting the 12mm to help bridge the gap between the 18mm and 7mm? I'm basically looking to give myself a fairly wide range of power options. I've been using the 10mm supplied eyepiece for lunar obs and that seems to be about right (although not a great eyepiece). I'm wondering whether the 12mm would be a worthwhile addition or whether to just stick to the 18mm and barlow as necessary. I've only just aquired the 18mm and haven't had an opportunity to try it out as a lunar eyepiece.

Jon

[John]

Something in the 12mm-10mm range would be useful I think. It seems to be more effective to have more choice of focal lengths at the shorter end of eyepiece focal lengths. My set goes 31mm-21mm-13mm-8mm-6mm-5mm-4mm-3.5mm-3mm but it does cover 4 scopes from 663mm to 1800mm in focal length.

[nicks90]

i wouldnt bother getting anything other than the 31mm and a really decent quality x2 barlow .

I've been reading up on the Celestron X-CEL LX's on cloudy nights + elsewhere and the opinion is they barlow very well. that would give you a decent 31mm for widefield and 18mm, 9mm, 7mm and 3.5mm for the rest, which seems a good spread.