Eyepiece Indecision Hell

[inedible_hulk]

Hi,

once again I'm hoping to benefit from the fine minds at SGL. When I was planning my upgrade path and choosing my Mak 150, I thought my eyepiece upgrade path was fairly straight forward. I was initially thinking of filling in the gaps and upgrading my BSTs (which have served me well

[Roy Challen]

Perhaps a bit of both might be good. Why not buy an Ortho and an ES82? That way you get experience in both types of ep which may help you decide which is better for you in the long run. Plus you'll not go hungry!

[Roy Challen]

Oops meant to add that you could probably get a whole set of televue plossls s/h for less than the price of a delos

[ollypenrice]

Just buy a 13 Ethos.   It will do everything and you'll never change it. It will make anything up to about 20mm in normal FOV eyepieces superflous. They do appear second hand. (Mine did.)

Olly

[alan potts]

The 11mm ExSc 82 degree is said by many to be the pick of the crop though I have never used one myself. More money but I can say the 11mm Nagler is a very fine eyepiece indeed, but for 230 odd quid it should be.

The 12mm Delos is excellent but again pricey and more than the Nagler, there is also a 12mm Nagler which is again superb and has 18mm of eye relief, if you wear glasses.

Personally on your scope, which I think is F12 and if you wanted 11mm I would go for the ExSc,  FLO sell them now at a reasonable price.

To answer the other part of your question, I do tire of using orthos quicker than other eyepieces as the FOV is small, Plossl are not so bad but I find a little tight on ER at 11mm F/L.

Alan

[Qualia]

I have no experiences whatsoever with 150 Maks so I'm just wondering outloud....

Televue eyepieces, for example, are superb but with the long focal length of your Mak, I wonder how the cost could be realistically justified seeing as your scope is very easy on eyepieces. Along these lines, I'm sure BSTs, X-Cel LXs, Hyperions, Vixen LVWs would be absolutely fine and no doubt would perform in the 'slower' scope on the same footing as TeleVue, Pentax et al.

Along similar lines, if you were looking at eyepieces around 11mm to 12mm, we're talking about a magnification around 150x. That kind of power works fine on some galaxies and globulars but in general, I wonder how much you would use it for DSO viewing in the f12?

That's my first thought; the second runs a little more at a tangent and it's about the scope itself. It's a well-worn phrase but the term “Planet Killer” is often mentioned when astronomers are discussing the merits of certain types of telescopes and very often in those conversations, the Maks come up.

When pointing out a 'disadvantage' to the Maks, some folk mention the scopes long focal length. These folk point out the narrow field of view and the scope's restriction with it's smaller field of view.

I'm sure a lot of this is just talk, that is, in reality, out in the field I'm sure your f12 loaded with a low power wide field eyepiece could fit in Messier's Open Clusters (M45 is perhaps the only exception), Planetary Nebulae, Galaxies (M31 being an exception) comfortably and with room to spare.

So rather than a 12mm wide-field, perhaps something like a wide-field 70º+ 25mm would be more useful and when you wanted to up the power, just Barlow it.

Along a similar line of thought, a brand new eyepiece like the Delos, for example, would cost about as much as an 8" Dob. Perhaps it might also be interesting to look into this as a possible avenue of action. The 8" would be less contrasty/APO like, but might be more suited for lower power DSO hunting, while your 150 Mak would be the perfect planet and double star killer

These are just some rambling thoughts Oh, I forgot to mention, I'm probably going to be of no help

[Pig]

13mm Ethos do appear second hand...... but not very often  rare little things if you ask me

[ronin]

Get the other 2 BST's and use that as your base set for general use across you scopes (3?)

Then decide if at the medium to high magnifications if you would like the wider field delivered by the ES82's.

If so get one.

The Delos are nice but for a 72 degree eyepiece seem a bit high in cost.

[damnut]

The ES ep's are great, I could not justify the price of ay new TV ep especially a delos, I did pick up a 13mm nagler very reasonably from SGL though.

The Skymax with a high focal ratio is not that fussy with ep's and I am also a great fan of BST's , your 130p s well suited to the BST's and the ES 82 deg series would be a great upgrade. The ST80 with an amount of CA would also benefit from the quality of the ES. At the best part of £300 for the Delos it would be another scope for me.

[inedible_hulk]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, they are very much appreciated. I'm kind of itching for a wider fov for viewing planets as I enjoy the context and setting provided by the associated moons and background stars. It also won't hurt for when my attention is drawn to DSOs and the like. I was leaning towards the E.S. 82 and I'm now pretty certain that's the way for me to go. Not too pricy and if I like it, it's not too painful to buy another to replace the BST 25mm. I'm very fond of my BSTs and they've done sterling work in my 130P, but I find that I'm hankering for a little more when I'm using the Mak (the 15mm is really nice in the Mak though). Talk of Ethos and new scopes though; you guys are incorrigible

[damnut]

That's a very considered conclusion.

Hwyl!