meade 4000 series eye piece filter set

[alro]

Again, thanks for your help paul. There was an issue with my tripod so waiting for a replacement to be sent out. So the 14mm meade with 82 fov should be a good one to go for!

[Northern Soul man]

Great, I had an 8" LX 90 before I had the 11" Celestron, I sold it with my 12" Dob to part fund the CPC, must say the Meade was a really nice scope. I think I had it for about 5 years and never had a problem with it, the tube assembly and the optics were really nice and the electronics never missed a beat in the whole of the 5 years, I suffer with a lot of light pollution but this never put me off observing one bit.  I just wished that I could have afforded to keep the LX,  but alas not - I've settled with the SCT type scopes and have been really pleased with the overall experience, just being out and having the scope pointed at Jupiter, you know, I'm aligned and tracking, I can just sit there, not going from object to object, but just sitting there with my eyes pinned to the Binoviewer and just taking it all in.

Paul.

[alro]

All sounds good.

[alro]

Plossl ep

is a meade plossl far superior to antares and skywaycher or is there little difference.

im looking at getting a 32mm or 40mm plossl along with the wide angle 5000 meade 14mm.

Do you recommend any other 32 or 40mm.

Still not decided if to get the meade plossle set or not. At 200 undecided if i should take a punt on it.

Pros a box, a range of ep, barlow, filters

cons, ep may not use

al

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Al, The plossl ep is just the design and lens arrangement inside the ep - the Meades are in the same bracket as you mention  - the Skywatchers and the Antares - a lot of Astronomers on here go for the BST Starguiders - they seem to be the next step up in quality, but I only have the meade 4000's and the Hyperions to go by - the BST's are mentioned and used by a lot on here - have a search of the eyepiece forums and they seem to pop up on a regular basis.

A lot tend to go for the longer focal length Ep's with a much wider FOV with a different design like the Super wides, Ultra wides and Mega wides in one or two different manufacturers and many say steer well clear of the EP sets and try to build a set yourself from different Manufacturers.

Paul.

[alro]

Is this the bst starguiders you mean

15mm - BST Explorer ED Eyepiece

had a look at these, seem to have good reviews, would this be a better option than meade wide angle meade 5000

bst fov 60

meade fov 80

this is difficult

al

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Al, yes they are the ones, not to sure about the FOV though, I seem to do ok with the narrower field of view, using the Binoviewers its fine, but at F10 it never seems to be very expansive anyway.  F10 aint really the best for those really large views - due to the nature of long focal length scopes, your never going to get the really large views associated with a refractor or a fast dob, I've always settled with the views through the SCT and have got used to the more restrictive fields of view - you can get most deep sky in the field, but I use binoculars for the really nice wide fields, you can get anything with them, just that you have a lot less magnification - again, swings and roundabouts!!

PAul.

[alro]

Thanks again, they seem about a third of the price as well.

with my ignorance i just thought the larger fov the better!

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Al, no worries, I'm in the same boat regarding the FOV, I do the maths with my Ep's and the best I can get out of the is just over a degree or so - this is the FOV, but trying to trawl through all of the different calculations does my head in, the AFOV is just what you can see when just looking through the EP alone, but when you place it into the telescope - different optical systems work in different ways with different outcomes, but generally if you put the Ep's with different TFOV in the same scope, obviously the one with the larger FOV will show you more of the sky - I THINK?

Paul.

[alro]

Think im almost there.

Almost certain i have ruled out box set.

I think i will get an 8 and 15mm

i think its meade 8.8mm 5000 series wide angle, with fov 80 and bst starguider 15mm that i will go for.

unless someone really recommends that the meade would not be any better than the bst . I have also read that bst starguider 15mm was voted best in range, that is my reason for that size.

i have almost 20 worth of points at rvo so this will bring it to just over 100. Im hoping to get a wow factor!

i am sure i have read somwhere as well that sometimes when you use barlow you dont get as good view, again i have no experience in this. Based on that i think i will leave barlow for time being.

i am only seeing positive reviews on bst, so will probably get a few! I also think both of these are parfocal with own brand.

[allen g]

Paul, nice scope that will give you lots of viewing pleasure.  I bought this scope in 2010 and it was my first.  As a bonus, it came with the meade 4000 set of EPs.  They were fine as I did not have knowledge of EPs at the time.  I went to star parties and had the opportunity to try other EPs in my scope.  First, some of those EPs in the set will get minimal use like the 6mm.  The filter set is useless as it is painted glass.  And so on.  It was not long before I bought individual EPs.  It took a bit of experience and research (which in itself was fun) but the scope can handle higher quality EPs that suit your needs and desires.  I ended up going directly to high quality EPs because I felt they would last a lifetime and be used in subsequent scopes that would be purchased.  There are plenty of choices of EPs, always sales going on, and lots of others you can ask for advice.  I would purchase one at a time to fit your needs and budget.  Punch line is my original 4000 set is laying around somewhere and will never be used.  Enjoy the hobby - a lot to learn and experience. allen g

[alro]

Allen, thanks for the advice. I see you have some high end ep.

what is the lowest ep you would recommend.

I understand it can get x400 magnification, and a 5mm would achieve this but skies dependent is it recommend to get a 5 mm?

Thanks

[John]

400x is the max that is useful in theory with an 8". In practice the seeing conditions and other factors will mean that the practical max would be quite a lot lower, somewhere between 200x and 270x depending on the seeing conditions.

When I had a Celestron 8" SCT I found 250x about the most that I could use while retaining quality images and I used an 8mm Tele Vue plossl to get that. That combination gave me some of the best views of Saturn that I've ever had.

I doubt a 5mm eyepiece for an F/10 8" SCT would get very much use to be honest with you.

[alro]

Thanks John, i am looking at either meade 5000 wide angle 8.8mm or bst starguider explorer 8mm. Any advice on either? Or worthwile getting both .

[John]

I've not used either but I doubt you would need both unless you want to compare them and sell the looser off. Either would work very well with your F/10 SCT.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

i had a whole set of meade 5000 series UWA and they are great Ep`s . Alternatives are Explore Scientific 82 degree range. i can bet both these have exactly the same optics with only difference being:meade has a rather large rubber lump body what is a twist up and used as eye guard at the same time where Ex Sc is more of the traditional way twist up rubber eye guard. never had any BST or any of they clones as such cant tell anything about them.

As John mentioned,in F10 pratically any eye piece will work fine,it will be down to personal preferences and finances and FOV.meade are 82 degrees where BTS where 60.