New Eyepices for my SW Evostar 150

[stuffedhaggis]

Hi all

So guys I am looking to get some good not to expensive eyepices I have £250 to blow on these. So looking for  good advice.

These will be running on a Sky Watcher Evostar 150. Any recommendations would be great. Also I don’t want to buy 2^nd hand on these.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

i am afraid with the statement of :"I dont want to buy 2nd hand" you are making a BIG mistake.Majority of people on this forum have they eye piece collections built on by buying 2nd hand.

I dont have ANY eye piece what i have bought from official distributor.they are all 2nd or even maybe 3rd hand as I am after the ones who you simply cant buy anymore as production stopped 20 or 30 years ago ,but even the new modern ones can be picked up a heck of a lot cheaper by buying 2nd hand and there is nothing wrong with it.example: televue delos: new will be 280quid,s/h 185 or even cheaper,same applies to any other eye piece.Your scope at the end of a day is second hand too

Also to recommend an eye piece,would be handy to know what do you want to observe. For planetaries,bright DSo`s,orthoscopic eye pieces will be the absolute best,but they have relatively short eye relief,if really on budget,people recommend BST Starguiders,there are million of options on eye pieces so let us know what you want to achieve and we will help. 

[nightfisher]

There was a few Circle T orthoscopics on astro buy sell other day, these would have been superb for your scope, but if you have to go new then BST at £47 each, go for a 25mm, 18mm, 12mm, and 8mm

[damnut]

As above, have had numerous 2'nd eps bought sold here, and all looked after and excellent. You are missing out!

The BST's are excellent value new and have a great reputation. However for £250 you could just about get three 68 deg new explore scientific ep's. Also the Celestron excel and williams optics swan come into the three for £250.

[Floater]

As above.

Don't turn your back on the used market: amateur astronomers tend to appreciate, and look after their gear. They only sell for a good reason, not to offload badly-used equipment.

[ronin]

Although buying used is not a bad idea it does mean that what you want has to apper and that you have to be the person that gets them.

Hobsey had a collection of BST STarguiders/Explorers for sale in the Classifieds a few days back, if they are still around they would sort of fit well for the whole lot - I think 4. The other 2 you could get from Alan at Skys the Limit if you wanted the complete set.

The 150 is f/8 if I recall so to keep it simple the BST's would still be OK if you bought new.

The Celestron X-Cels fit but at £64 it means in effect 4 of them, you would get 5 BST's for £250.

You could go for TV plossls but as they cost more again I am guessing at 3 of these, very nice clear eyepieces however.

After that the general eyepiece cost jumps and you re in the £200 area so just one.

If you want "general" viewing and not the high magnification then the BST's with the exclusion of the 5mm.

If you were thinking of magnification then the 7mm, 9mm, 15mm or 18mm , then the 25mm X-Cel.

There must be others then the BST's and X-Cel's, sim,ply these get mentioned all the time, to the exclusion of just about all else.

An alternative to the TV plossls would be the Vixen plossls, they have a good reputation, you could get loads of them.

There are 70 degree eyepieces by Antares that Rother Valley sell they are a possible option.

Another option just come to mind are the WO eyepieces, they do a set of 3 SWANs.

[happy-kat]

Two good reads

http://www.swindonstargazers.com/beginners/eyepieces.htm

And

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/43171-eyepieces-the-very-least-you-need/page-1

[Peter Drew]

A zoom eyepiece would work well at F8 and give you every focal length between 8mm and 24mm and the convenience of not having to keep swapping eyepieces. This could be complimented with a low power wide angle eyepiece all withi you budget.    

[Ruud]

That's a nice looking telescope!

Refractors are capable of showing stunning wide field views, so I would buy a Maxvision 34 mm 68° or a 40mm 68° for it. They cost €119 and €149 respectively.

The 34 mm would give you a true field of 1.9° @35x with an exit pupil of 4.3mm.

The 40 mm (very big and heavy) would give you a true field of 2.27° @30x with an exit pupil of 5.0mm.

The 40mm would reach the "wide view, low magnification, rich field" end of the magnification range of your telescope.

You'd have some money left.

[YKSE]

Have you tried your present eyepieces? What do you think of their performance in this scope?

I agree with others about buying used, it'll save you some good money in case you don't get along with the eyepiece you bought.

Baader Mark III zoom should cover all your mid power range, then a 2" around 40mm should be very useful for low power work, also as finder EP, as Ruud pointed out. Maxvision 34mm or 40mm should be among the best  bang for the bucket, only possible issue would balancing with other EPs, since these are heavy beasts, especially the 40mm which weighs over 1.2kg. A used 38mm Panaview should be good for your scope if you are not vey fussy about edge performance, a used 40mm SW Aero should be better in edge than panaview. The latter two weigh just a little more than Baader zoom, with 2" adapter attached to Baader zoom, you don't need to use the 2" to 1.25" reducer when switching EPs.

[stuffedhaggis]

Guys thanks for the input. I have ordered 24,15,12 and 8 BST today

[bomberbaz]

By my reckoning you should still have a few quid left. You could buy a cheap eyepiece for widefield viewing and as a finder eyepiece. Only a thought here but the Revelation eyepice at 42mm would be perfect and in your F8 scope might not be too badly corrected either. It wont be Televue standard but thatsw why they are 10 times more expensive.

http://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/Revelation_42mm_Widefield_Eyepiece_2_.html

steve

[Dark Knight Gazer]

Good choice with BSTs!

[stuffedhaggis]

Baz I have a 32 MM Sw posil that I have for wide field stuff. Thanks for the link thi