Advice for a beginner on ortho eyepieces

[thing]

I'm generally into looking at clusters and stuff rather than planetary but I do like the odd peek at Mars and Saturn. I have a 5 mil orthoscopic which gives me x200 on my scope. It seems to give clear views but the eye relief is awful, you have to be 'in the right spot' to see anything as well. Is this about right for an ortho or would I be better off looking at some of the more expensive stuff like a Hyperion for planetary work? My scope is an F5 by the way.

Also it's difficult to actually see where the planet is centred in the eyepiece IE you can see the planet OK but it's hard to tell whether it's in the centre of the eyepiece or near the edge as everything is very black ( I assume this means the contrast is good?) Is this because the field of view is small? On my other eyepieces you can sort of 'see' the barrel of the eyepiece before you get to the view so it's easy to centre a target.

I like eyepieces with a largish lens at the end, excuse my ignorance of the correct term , they seem to be easier to look through, although I have a massive 7.5 mil eyepiece that kidney beans like nobody's business, it's hardly useable. Is it always a trade off between comfortable viewing and a good view?

All advice appreciated.

[Andrew*]

I like eyepieces with a largish lens at the end, excuse my ignorance of the correct term ,

eye lens. This usually means longer eye relief. Short f/l orthos have smaller eye lenses and less eye relief.

I'm generally into looking at clusters and stuff rather than planetary but I do like the odd peek at Mars and Saturn. I have a 5 mil orthoscopic which gives me x200 on my scope. It seems to give clear views but the eye relief is awful, you have to be 'in the right spot' to see anything as well. Is this about right for an ortho or would I be better off looking at some of the more expensive stuff like a Hyperion for planetary work? My scope is an F5 by the way.

I've experienced this with orthos too. If you want decent planetary performance, but are uncomfortable with an ortho, a very good bet is a TMB planetary. These give better eye relief and 60 degree field. Very comfortable eyepieces I've heard. Unfortunately I believe they are temporarily out of production while a new model is on the way. Worth looking out for one second hand, or see if there are any astro dealers with a 5mm (a popular choice, I imagine...) still in stock...

Andrew

[John]

Hi thing,

You might be interested in the thread below where Kennyboy has a similar issue to the one that you have raised:

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,23441.0.html

The concensus seems to be that it's worth sacrificing a little bit of ultimate performance for some viewing comfort, in this case provided by the Hyperion 5mm. I believe that the TMB / Burgess Planetary EP's mentioned by Andrew provide similar benefits as well.

John

[The Warthog]

You are mentioning kidney beaning with a 'massive' 7.5mm ep. I am guessing this is a Celestron X-Cel. I have had three of these, and find that the kidney beaning problem is reduced if you hold your eye back from the eye lens. They have a 20mm eye relief, so use all of it, and your kidney beaning should be reduced.

[thing]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. Warthog, the 7.5 mil is a Celestron clone, I have tried standing back a bit from it but don't seem to have much luck. Luck slike a Hyperion I think being as the TMB's are out of stock/production. In fact I'm very tempted to get the Hyperion Zoom.................. 8)