Yet another case of 'which eyepiece'!

[YKSE]

yes, 804 grams listed in ES site, you get a fair chunk for that money.

[jetstream]

I wonder if a couple of Baader Classic orthos would be nice for this use?

[Joe12345]

I wonder if a couple of Baader Classic orthos would be nice for this use?

They are around the right price, although I think if I was going to get a £50 ep then it would be BST. Does anyone have the baader classics? Are they better than BSTs?

Also, does it really seem likely that the ES maxvision would topple my scope?

[jetstream]

Joe, I own 2 Baader Classics- the 18mm and the 10mm and they give views ( narrow) way above their price point. These things will compete with the best of glass but with a narrow FOV and eyerelief that gets tighter when the focal length ( EP ) drops.

Do you want or need a large TFOV wide angle? For my skies and my use I typically use a widefield in the 21-23mm range, for use with the OIII and for large star clusters. For galaxies a 10mm (my scope) and for planets 10mm or less.

For example the 10mm BCO barlowed 2x with give the best planetary eyepieces a run for their money. Lots of options for sure.
 

[John]

They are around the right price, although I think if I was going to get a £50 ep then it would be BST. Does anyone have the baader classics? Are they better than BSTs?

Also, does it really seem likely that the ES maxvision would topple my scope?

I've extensively tested the Baader Classic's and compared them to some of the best eyepieces around:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/blog/baader-classic-ortho-plossl-review.html

They stack up really well optically and, in my opinion, offer the best pure optical performance you can get for their price. They don't have the eye relief, wider field of view and viewing comfort of the BST's and other wide angle / long eye relief designs but then no orthoscopic or plossl does.

[SpaceWalker]

They are around the right price, although I think if I was going to get a £50 ep then it would be BST. Does anyone have the baader classics? Are they better than BSTs?

Well, to me asking which of them is better is same as asking who's  better, Byron or Shakespeare? .  Ideally, for 200mm+ manual Dob you should have 2 sets of eyepieces, wide angle for general viewing and some narrow angle plossls, orthos etc. for critical viewing. Even though if I have the 6.5mm Meade HD-60 which is optically similar to the BST Explorer and which I use for general purposes a lot as well as the 8.8mm Meade 5K UWA, when I need *ultimate performance* I grab my 6mm BCO. Due to miserable eye relief of less than 5mm and narrow FOV I don't like to use it for extended period of time, but it's performance, and I agree completely with John,  justifies it's presence in my eyepiece case side by side with my wide angle eyepieces. I'm planning on getting the 10mm BCO when I find a good deal on second hand. But I would never sacrifice wide angles for orthos in my Dob, so get the wide angle eyepieces first. I'd join recommendations above on getting the 11mm ES82 instead. It'll give you 109x magnification and 2mm exit pupil good for many DSOs. IMO, even though you'll spend all your money the ES82 is a step up over the BST, it's better in all respects and has a very good resale value so if necessary you can easily sell it for ~75% of it's new price. And combined with a 2x Barlow  it'll give you a nice 5.5mm planetary eyepiece. A rule of thumb, buy good buy once. The bad thing is that you'll never will want to go back to 50-60*AFOV after you looked through 82*AFOV   .

[Joe12345]

Unfortunately the 11mm costs too much, so is it worth getting the 6.7 mm one instead? That would also mean that I wouldn't need to get a barlow. The only problem with that is that I wouldn't be able to see DSOs very well. My birthday is in oct, but I definitely can't ask anyone for something that costs £100 ( a long fl, good,wide fov ep). However I might just be able to ask for something like a BST.

So I would like a wide fov, long focal length ep that is reasonably comfortable, then for my b-day get a cheaper ep for planetary and small, bright Messiers.

So spending £100 on a short fl ep would leave me trying to get a cheap ep with a long fl and wide fov which wouldn't be very high quality.

I think the best thing to do is get an ep which will let me see the andromeda galaxy as that is the only galaxy I have been successful in seeing ( I have tried others).

[SpaceWalker]

Being a budget observer myself I understand your situation.  About 80% of my eyepiece collection I bought second-hand.  Always buy what you can afford.  If the ES82s are out of your budget get the Explorers or Celestron X-Cel LXs.

As a general recommendation, buy the best eyepiece you can afford with the widest FOV for exit pupil of 2mm (11-13mm in your case), it’s top priority, IMO. The second priority would be high magnification eyepiece.  A low power wide angle eyepiece would be the third priority. Actually, you need 3 eyepieces and a Barlow. Barlow isn’t the luxury it’s the way to save money for budget observers. Remember, if you don’t like Barlow you’ll have to pay much more for additional fixed FL eyepieces. You’ve said in your original post that you wanted Hyperions with FTRs. I don’t have them but have read a lot what people say, some of gazers like FTRs but most of them hate FTRs since they mean too much hassle in the dark when at the scope, much more than with the Barlow. But, of course, it’s up to you.

The *truth* about the Andromeda galaxy you may know or you may not.  It’s huge, ~3.5*, like 7 Moons, but you can see the entire galaxy with the wings and dust lanes only in very dark skies.  All what we see in our light polluted skies is just its core and no eyepiece or filter can help seeing more. At the same time there are a lot of Messier or NGC DSOs available even in LP skies, like globular and open clusters, planetary nebulae and even bright galaxies beside M31. For example have you tried observing M81/82 galaxy pair in Ursa Major? A spectacular pair.

What I would suggest, get the 12mm BST Explorer and   this Barlow, looks like it’s a rebranded GSO which I have. Probably, not the best one, but works fine when I need 1.6x option to convert my 8.8mm Meade UWA into 5.5mm 82*AFOV planetary eyepiece (with this EP that 1.5x Barlow nosepiece actually works as a 1.6x). Considering your stock eyepieces and the future 12mm BST you’ll get 25mm, 16.7mm, 12mm (60*AFOV), 10mm, 8mm (60*AFOV), 6.7mm, 6mm (60*AFOV) and 5mm. Your 10mm stock plossl combined with the 2x Barlow should do decent planetary work under excellent seeing conditions, but when the atmosphere doesn't support 240x, use the 6mm (2x) or 8mm (1.5x) barlowed 12mm BST.

 

Or you can get the 25mm BST Explorer and the 2x Barlow instead if you still want low power wide angle eyepiece for extended targets.  Than you’ll have the 12.5mm 60*AFOV eyepiece (2x barlowed 25mm BST Explorer) for DSOs and your 10mm plossl combined with the 2x Barlow will work for planets and the Moon untill you save enough money for shorter FL BST Explorer or 6mm BCO. The longest FL eyepiece you can get for your scope on a budget would be the 38mm Panaview, pretty good for the price, I like my 32mm Agena rebrand from this line.

I'd suggest you also to think about a UHC filter for viewing planetary and bright emission nebulae. Many planetary nebulae are quite bright and can be observed even in light polluted skies.

But what is most important is your experience. With more practice you'll see much more faint DSOs even under  significant light pollution.

Hope, that helps.

[Joe12345]

WOW!

Thank you, that must have taken ages to write!...

I have looked up all of the eps mentioned, and found the x-cels. I would probably get the 25mm and spend the left over money on http://www.365astronomy.com/365Astronomy-UHC-Ultra-High-Contrast-Nebula-Filter-1.25.html?gclid=CI7Jmb3mrcYCFSXHtAodacUCDg (would this be a decent one?) then wait until my b-day for a barlow and 12/15mm bst.