after advice..

[danccat]

I have just purchased my first telescope - celestron nexstar 8SE, managed to get lucky and viewed Jupiter before all this cloud came in via my 25mm EP.

I've ordered some filters, with a x2 x-cel Barlow, 10mm x-cel and 12mm x-cel EP.

My question is, what's the ideal size EP for nebulae on my scope? I'm interested in a 15mm Celestron Luminos or a 31mm and just add a Barlow to it, if need be.

Also, some of these pictures of deep space are stunning, all the reds, oranges etc, is this achieved via pc edit or simple lens filter?

Thank you for taking your time to read

[red dwalf]

congrats on the purchase of a fine scope, i don`t do a lot of visual viewing much now days as i`m more into my imaging but you`ll find this website very useful.

http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/field-view-calculator

change it from imaging view to visual view and you`ll be able to see what the different fields of view different eyepieces will give you.

most of the images are taken with either a colour or mono cooled ccd camera, mono requires filters of course to achieve the different colours in the images.  

[Peter Drew]

You will be better off with a 31mm eyepiece to use with your 8se for most of the nebulae, the smaller ones might benefit from your 12mm. A 10mm eyepiece will give slightly over 200x when using a diagonal which will probably represent the upper level of magnification on the average night.     

[damnut]

Hi There,

Good advice above, you can also look at these ;--

http://www.stargazing.net/naa/scopemath.htm

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm

When I had my 10" Lx the best widefield vew for nebula was a moonfish 30mm, the f10 is very forgiving on lesser ep's. There are guides by Warthog and R Wilkey that are on SGL that describe the eps that you need as a rule. Having a range is the best idea so a low, medium and high power ep is your start.

Hwyl!

[ronin]

Thought X-Cel's were 5mm, 7mm, 9mm and 12mm but no 10mm ?

A 10mm will deliver about 0.3 degree view, Orion is 1 degree across so you will only get about 1/3 of that in view. As Peter suggests a 30mm will be very useful for nebula, possibly the 25mm X-Cel as the view from that or a 30mm plossl is the same.

[Qualia]

I have just purchased my first telescope - celestron nexstar 8SE, managed to get lucky and viewed Jupiter before all this cloud came in via my 25mm EP.

I've ordered some filters, with a x2 x-cel Barlow, 10mm x-cel and 12mm x-cel EP.

My question is, what's the ideal size EP for nebulae on my scope? I'm interested in a 15mm Celestron Luminos or a 31mm and just add a Barlow to it, if need be.

Also, some of these pictures of deep space are stunning, all the reds, oranges etc, is this achieved via pc edit or simple lens filter?

Thank you for taking your time to read

Personally, I wouldn't buy any new gear for a while. If you've only just got your scope there's no hurry to buy more stuff and I feel it is better to evaluate what you have before purchasing more eyepieces. Soon enough, your telescope will talk to you and it will let you know what it may need .

As it stands, I think your scope is an f10, so the 25mm will give around 80x, the 12mm will give you around 170x and the 10mm around 200x. If you throw the Barlow into that mix, you've got 160x, 340x and 400x.

As you'll appreciate, atmospheric conditions don't always permit one to view over 250x. Indeed, that kind of power is quite dependent on seeing conditions and is predominately suitable only for objects within the solar system, the Moon, Saturn, Mars, that kind of thing.

With the 25mm, 12mm and 10mm you've pretty much got your high powers and your medium powers covered, so I'd be looking for a widefield eyepiece between 30mm and 40mm. Something you can use to star hop, track down cloudy nebulae and galaxies and frame open clusters and rich star fields.

I have no experience with the 8" f10, but in my 10" f5, I generally find between 90x and 140x the most suitable for observing nebulae and galaxies, but obviously that doesn't cover all grounds. Some objects such as M 31, M 42, NGC 6960, NGC 2244 are better or only visible in lower powers.

Final point. The beautiful colours you see of nebulae or galaxies in astrophotos are only visible in astrophotos. When observing galaxies or nebulae at the eyepiece, you will generallly see in differing shades of grey, black and white. Your eye is simply incapable of detecting colour in very dim light. The dimmest light your eye can see is green, so it is possible that some very bright nebulae, such as the Orion Nebula, show a greenish tint but other than that only very bright objects, like the stars, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, are bright enough to exhibit colour.

[Fish]

On my C8 the most used eyepiece is a Panaview 38mm for wide field (ish) and locating . Like has been said stick with what you have for now and see how your observing developes and get used to the scope. About the best 1.25 eyepiece would be a TV 32 or similar. To go above 32mm you will be best to start looking at 2" eyepieces and that means a new diagonal so more expense .

[Astro Imp]

Rob (Qualia) makes a very good point about seeing most deep sky objects in various shades of grey. A good guide to what to expect is to view sketches produced by experienced observers. A very good start is the Messier objects produced by Mike:- http://www.pbase.com/mike73/messier_sketches

Good luck and enjoy

[glowjet]

A very nice instructive paperback book on DSO hunting.... "Observing The Deep Sky" by Darren Bushnall 175pp, available from our big online book outlet at less than £1 plus postage, all in black and white, with a big content on sketching what you see. Used to cost 10p but I think a bit of publicity has pushed up the price, well worth having on your bookshelf though, enjoy

[garryblueboy]

I used to get nice views through n 18 mm best in my mead lx 200 8inch the 32 Meade mm gave me wider view .