Same eyepieces used on different scopes

[trynda1701]

A question or two about eyepieces. I've read the sticky here on the forum about how to detemine what low medium and high power eyepieces to use on your scope. I'm wanting to upgrade my Kellners that I've had for years.

I've mentioned this on my thread about using the Heritage here...

http://http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/217716-skywatcher-heritage-130p-flexitube-how-do-you-use-yours/

...that I'm on a tight budget, but I'd like to try and get better quality eyepieces, and plan to follow the eyepiece thread advice and maybe get an eyepiece at a time.

Now, obviously, my Celestron C8 and Heritage Flexitube 130P will have a differing focal length eyepieces set for their respective focal lengths, but could I use the same make of eyepieces on both? I debating between BST Starguider Explorer ED Plossls or the Celestron X-Cel LX series Plossls. Are these two series going to work well on both scopes well, especially the short focal ratio Heritage?

Mark

[Qualia]

my Celestron C8 and Heritage Flexitube 130P will have a differing focal length eyepieces set for their respective focal lengths, but could I use the same make of eyepieces on both?

Mark

Hiya Mark,

I'd personally feel the answer is yes, Mark As far as I'm aware the eyepieces you mentioned are all excellent EPs and should perform well in both your forgiving f/10 and the slightly more demanding f/5. For general usage, you could probably get away with owning a few of the mentioned eyepieces for the f10 (25mm, 18mm, 12mm, 9mm?) and using a decent Barlow on the same eyepieces for the f5 (and for upping the power of the same EPs on the f10). Another option would be to slowly build up a secondhand Tele Vue Plossl range and Tele Vue x 2 Barlow which are all outstanding eyepieces and which would perform wonderfully in both your scopes. For example:

Eyepiece Focal Length                   f10              f5              x2 Barlow with f5

TV Plossl

32mm                                              62x             20x            40x

25mm                                              80               26             52

20mm                                              100            32              64

15mm                                              133            43              86

11mm                                              181            59             118

8mm                                                250            81             162

X-Cel LX/BST

25mm                                              80             26              52

18mm                                              111           36              72

12mm                                              166           54              108

9mm                                                222           72              144

It might also be an idea not to limit your collection to just one brand of eyepiece or to complete a set. I mean, it might be worth your while to start by hunting out the TV 32mm Plossl which would be a nice, low power wide-ish field eyepiece in both your telescopes which can be Barlowed to cover your TV 15mm or the X-Cel LX 18mm range for the f10 etc. Plenty to mull over...plenty of compromises....glad I'm not in your shoes

Hope this helped a little

[baggywrinkle]

Good answer above.

I have gone through a number of scopes but re-used existing EP's with generally no issue. The only thing is to be aware of over magnification.

[YKSE]

Very good advices above.

I'd like to add that you should try to use your current eyepieces with/without the barlow,  to get a better idea about which focal length are more appropriate for each scope, and read more about different eyepieces before making decision. There are some more ideas about what to upgrade:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/217907-first-eyepiece-upgrade-what-you-wish-you-had-done/

[Qualia]

Other than buying a set of of eyepieces and Barlow, another idea could be to get a zoom eyepiece. The necessary caveat would be that in most things astro related, you get what you pay for. Cheap zooms will be alright but decent individual eyepieces like those mentioned above will be better. The Baader Hyperion unit is reported to come close in performance to individual eyepieces and as such its price tag might be considered quite reasonable. The zoom saves you from swapping eyepieces and you can work through the powers to see what suits your scope the most with eye to buying fixed eyepieces in the future. The only snag with zooms is that on lower powers you're working on quite a narrow field of view which increases as you increase magnification

[Moonshane]

If eyepieces work well in an f5 scope they will generally work better in a slower (f6-f15) scope. Whilst I don't propose you buy as many as I have built up over a period of time, this thread http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/188794-eyepiece-groups/ might help you see the logic of what I did buy and why.