Baader Hyperion zoom for Skywatcher 200p Dob

[roadrunner]

i am looking to improve my eyepiece collection. i have the stock eps that came with the 200p dob as well as a celestron box set of eps and filters that i got from FLO. i found the celestron eps, in general, an improvement on the stock eps.

my viewing interests are wide ranging from moon, planets and DSOs.

i have been looking at the Hyperion zoom and wonder if anyone has any direct experience of it with this scope?

thanks

don

[baggywrinkle]

Not with that scope, but it is a very good eye piece. I am extremely happy with mine.

[roadrunner]

Thanks baggy wrinkle, how do you find it in comparison with the Celestron zoom?

[baggywrinkle]

I have found the Baader to be visually sharper over the central 70%. I use the Baader most of the time.

The Baader can also be directly fitted to a T ring and therefore to a camera. The Celestron cannot.

Weight wise the Baader is quite a heavy chunk. If I was being weight restricted then the Celestron is better.

I have never barlowed the celestron but on Saturday night I used the 2x Baader barlow I bought as part of the package and on my little Altair Astro ED70 it really pushed it. I looked at Jupiter and even at the  8mm setting with the barlow (90X) the view was still very bright and I could make out at least 3 bands.

[John]

I've owned a couple of the Baader zooms. I treat them as 8-20mm eyepieces because above 20mm the field of view narrows significantly and the field stop becomes fuzzy which I don't enjoy much. They are quite well corrected eyepieces in my F/5.3 dobsonian, noticably better than the fixed focal length Hyperions in that stars stay looking star-like further across the field of view. I would want something like a 32mm plossl or a 24mm wide angle in addition to the zoom at the low power / wide angle end.

I've not used the Baader Zoom Barlow which would give you higher powers but the reports on it are good.

The one area where I was a little dissapointed in the Baader Zoom was when viewing galaxies and nebulae. The views would look decent enough with the zoom  but when I replaced it with a good quality fixed focal length eyepiece (Vixen SLV's in this case) I found nebulous deep sky objects were just a bit brighter with the fixed FL eyepiece. I noticed this particularly when viewing the galaxy Messier 82 and it's supernova that shone for some time last year and also Messier 1, the Crab Nebula.

Another point worth noting is that the Mk III Baader zoom has actual measured apparent fields of view that vary from 42 degrees (24mm) to 70 degrees (8mm) which are slightly different to the claimed specification.

Notwithstanding the above I feel the Baader Zoom is a very competant zoom eyepiece at an affordable price with the next steps up in zoom quality coming at a much, much higher price tag.

[roadrunner]

Thanks to you both for that useful insight.

I will likely order the Baader zoom

Don

[FINDTHESUN]

A quick bump for a few questions.

 

Is it a good idea to use a powermate with Baader Zoom EP?

 

I'm considering one of these:

 

- 4x is 2-inch and that's pretty cool;

- 2.5x is 1.25'';

- 2x is also 2-inch, gives less mag though;

 

I have a 32mm PanaView as well hence considering a 2-inch powermate.

But also thinking about getting a fixed ep at around 5mm later on (e.g. Baader Hyperion 5mm) so that's why 1.25'' is an option too.

 

The scope is the same as OP's - Skywatcher 200P Dob.

 

Which optic would be the most suitable for my equipment? Considering that a Baader Zoom comes with their 2.25x barlow.

 

Any advice is really appreciated!

 

Thanks!