Recommended Eyepieces

[CaptnSpaulding]

Hi all,

Total newbie here and just had the Celestron 76EQ as an early Father's Day present - didn't want anything pricey just in case it wasn't for me, even though I love astronomy/astrophotography and for £60 this was a bargain!

Anyway, been out tonight just getting to grips with what is what and what does what and trying to line up the red dot guide and realised it only came with two eyepieces and when I used both to focus on a lamp post, it occurred to me that they aren't very powerful. I couldn't test them for real as its so cloudy and windy but all I'm interested in really is the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. I'd love to see Saturn's rings and would like to see Jupiter's moon - a bonus if I could see one or two bands of Jupiter as I know I won't get very good results with such a cheap telescope.

Can you guys recommend anything to help me achieve this, whether it be eyepieces or Barlow lenses but obviously as cheap as possible too. I need to get a t ring and adapter to mount my camera too so my budget is tight.

Thanks guys!

[kalasinman]

A 4 or 5mm Plossl will put you 140-150x which is as far as is practical, both for the optics and seeing.

[John]

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'd have a go with the eyepieces that came with the scope before investing in others. I think the scope comes with 20mm and 10mm eyepieces giving you 35x and 70x.

Your scope is capable of showing you that Saturn has a ring system and Jupiters 2 main cloud belts and it's 4 brightest moons with the 70x eyepiece though the planets will look small. Frankly 100x will be about the most power that is useful with the scope.

[ronin]

Never easy when the person literally has just got hold of a scope.

The 2 supplied are not good, they are so not good that they could put a person off of ever carrying on, and that really is not good all round.

How about a little compromise?

Set the finder and scope up, try the 2 you have to get familiar with all the assorted bits and what they do.

This should take all of one evening and the whole of next week looks good for observing.

Basically just get used to it and finding things with the 20mm (mainly) and the 10mm.

Then if as is probable you want a bit better/more then get a 7mm plossl, nothing fancy.

That will give 100x, nice round number, don't laugh it is as good as any reason.

See how that performs and what you think of it all.

Minor hiccup is I cannot see a 7mm plossl.

6mm, 6,5mm and 7.5mm at Skys the Limit:

Another are the Antares plossl's at Rother Valley.

Search through for the plossl's.

[CaptnSpaulding]

Thanks for the welcome and appreciate all the advice and will certainly take all on board. I really thought I was going to be slaughtered and told to buy a £1500 telescope instead haha. I've lurked these forums for years but never made an account as I've always just observed the night sky with my eyes, but having recently got a nice DSLR and now a starter telescope, it seemed a good time to join the discussions and hopefully take this on as a hobby.

Thanks again

[ghostdance]

Good advice above....all I'd add is if you've been eyeballing the skies for years, a nice pair of 8 or 10x binoculars would also enhance your enjoyment and pair nicely with a 'scope

Oh,and if you haven't (betcha have tho) - good time to start learning the constellations and where things are....so a good little guide like Collins Gem Stars will help with the former, and something like Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas for the latter. Both easily found on Amazon

Then if the bins bug gets you, Steve Tonkin's (SGL member *binocular sky*) book Binocular Astronomy is very worth getting...

[damnut]

Warm welcome to SGL,And don't forget to download a planetarium program, plenty out there but try stellarium its great and free to be found here ;--- http://www.stellarium.org/

Hwyl!

[CaptnSpaulding]

Thanks again for more warm welcomes (diolch damnut )

Just spent some more time this evening as the clouds cleared away and its quite clear now. Absolutely loving it so far, I love the challenge of trying to find the object you want to see and when you finally zero in on it its very fulfilling haha

Spotted Saturn easily but I definitely do need a stronger eyepiece - I could just make out that the white spot I was looking at was just off being a nice circle/round shape so could kind of plac the rings in my head.

It's also great that you see so many other stars not seen with the naked eye - I found myself using the fine/slow control to pan through the sky slowly, looking to see what I could find.

Looked for Vega lastly and whilst panning around for it, saw a satellite or meteor whiz by which through a telescope looked even more spectacular.

Anyway enough spilling my excitement on you all, I'm off to find a new eyepiece!

[ghostdance]

The satellites are fun aren't they, but wait till a plane crosses your field of view! Makes me jump each time!

Happy eyepiece hunting

[John]

I'm glad you have seen Saturn

Being realistic though, a 76mm newtonian is not going to show you a large and detailed image of the planet whatever eyepiece you put in it. You should see that Saturn has rings and pick out it's brightest moon Titan nearby. That might be it's limit.

[alan potts]

There a re one or two posts here mentioning short Plossl eyepieces 7mm and below, these will have very short eye-relief indeed, I always wondered why TeleVue stopped theirs at 8mm, when I got the 11mm I found out.

Just a thought.

Alan.

[alro]

Hello capn,

have you consideted a x2 barlow and 15mm bst starguider, that will give you the 7,5mm with a twist up eyecup.

Or 8mm bst starguider.

al

[Highburymark]

Also be aware that Saturn is not ideally placed at the moment - would get a better view if it were higher in the sky. But part of the fun of astronomy is learning how to get the best from what equipment and viewing conditions that we have - if we were presented with perfect views every time we looked through our telescopes we wouldn't have the feeling of achievement that you've already experienced Capn

[CaptnSpaulding]

Hello capn,

have you consideted a x2 barlow and 15mm bst starguider, that will give you the 7,5mm with a twist up eyecup.

Or 8mm bst starguider.

al

I have no idea what one of them is haha.

I purchased a cheap 5mm Plossl eyepiece from eBay in the end as didn't want to spend too much on something I didn't know would work well with the telescope - but I have to say I am more than happy with it from the view of Saturn I had tonight with it. 

Ok maybe to you guys it's rubbish but for me, being able to see Saturns rings with my own eyes instead of just a 'star' in the sky, brought a real smile to my face and a sense of ... something - I don't know what. 

I don't even think I had it focused all that well as I was just popping out with it for 10 minutes before bed and the midges were eating me to death. Definitely open to some advice. Anyway, here is a quick photo I took by sticking my iPhone camera by the eyepiece (yes it was blumming hard through such a small hole in the dark!)

Saturn by Chris Atterbury, on Flickr

Saturn 2 by Chris Atterbury, on Flickr

[niallk]

Nice one!! Isn't it just great to be able to see these wonders from your own back garden

[awestruck]

Not rubbish at all I like to think most astronomers would rather look at a blurry planet in their backyard then an hd image on their computer screen. On the topic of eyepieces a nice option without breaking the bank could be one of meades plossl series. With the telescope you have, plossl eyepieces are a great option as the smaller field of view associated with them doesnt diminish planetary viewing. Happy viewing, cheers.

[Charic]

Hi there......the 5mm, although satisfactory  to you is a little too powerful for your scope? The more power you have, the fuzzier the image ? Your aperture of  76mm is a guide to the power achievable ie 76x  ( whereas mine is 200mm = 200 X) with a 5mm eyepiece, the sum is Focal Length / Eyepiece 700/5=140 Your trying to get twice the power the scope is capable of, the reason the image is the way it is. If you increase the size of the eyepiece, the image will get sharper, but smaller. The only solution is a bigger aperture from the telescope. But even at 200mm, Jupiter is not massive!

I was going to recommend a £15 eyepiece from Astroboot. Their 9mm  or 12mm GSO Revelation Astro Plossl, giving powers of 77x and 58x power, and these eyepieces wont break the bank £15 and will probably be optically better than the supplied eyepieces that came with the scope.

But whatever the outcome, enjoy your new found hobby