importance of eyepieces?

[neil groves]

I took a gander at Jupiter last night with my ED120, I was presented with a blurry image showing 2 cloud belts and 4 moons, I was using the eyepiece that came with my scope so I shouldn't expect the best image + Jupiter was in the L.P and reasonably low in the sky at the time, what difference does an eyepiece make? I have seen eyepieces costing hundreds of $$$, are they really that much better than say a $100 eyepiece? and are they worth the extra cash outlay? I am thinking of purchasing a naglar or a televue just to compare but they are very expensive compared to the Orion Stratus I am using?

any advise please?

Neil.

[jetstream]

Hi Neil, the 120ED will give great views @ 200x+ magnification assuming the seeing is good and the scope is cooled. LP is not much of a factor for Jupiter, but sky conditions will be.The SW120ED is an excellent planetary scope that is not hard on eyepieces. How is the seeing there?

[John]

Hi Neil,

The Orion Stratus are the same as the Baader Hyperions. The work very well in the F/7.5 ED120. Tele Vue eyepieces are excellent but you would see very little difference, if any, between, say, a Delos eyepiece and the Hyperion / Stratus in an F/7.5 refractor.

I suspect the poor Jupiter image was due to issues external to the scope and eyepiece.

[russ.will]

They are an improvement, but the worth of this improvement is a rather subjective judgement.

Most of the discernible improvements extra expense brings, are at the edge of the field of view and that in part is related to the scope in which they are used. In your F7.5 scope which is less harsh on EPs at the edges anyway, you would drop in my very equivalent (FOV & eye relief) TV Delos and probably wonder if the very small improvements are worth the extra.

Switch to a sub-F5 Newt and especially at the longer focal lengths, more clear water would start to become apparent, but as far as the middle 50% of the field of view goes, your Stratus would still be 90-95% of what you could expect to achieve.

Spending more on an increased aFOV is more objectively quantifiable in any scope simply because it is definitely more. But, to maintain a given level of correction at the edges is necessarily more expensive and in the widest 100deg aFOV EPs, very expensive if you want all of that AND to maintain decent eye relief.

What I am reasonably certain of, is that if you were to try say a second hand Nagler 9mm (gives 100x in your scope - always useful) you wouldn't loose any money if you didn't like it. Even if you didn't like it, I'm still pretty certain it would just be the first step towards the slippery slope of ever increasing eyepiece expenditure.

It's unavoidable.

Russell

[neil groves]

ok thanks guys, yes Jupiter was very low so i'll go with bad seeing lol

Neil.

[Saganite]

Hi Neil,

I fairly recently bought a 12" Lightbridge, and took a look at Jupiter , and boy was I disappointed. I could see less than I had seen with the

200mm Explorer, and no matter which eyepiece I tried, ES 11mm, Televue 10.5, 11mm, or 13mm plossl, or the circle T Orthos,nothing would

show much detail, and certainly not higher power.

But I realized that Jupiter was much much lower in the sky than when I had viewed last winter, and soon accepted that the 'seeing ' was poor.

In the last week, I have observed the planet, when almost overhead, in the early hours and what a difference, that made.

[ollypenrice]

The expensive EPs come into their own for showing you much, much wider fields of view at the same magnification and for being much sharper at the edge. On the planets the benefit is subtle. On larger targets it is enormous.

Olly