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Justifying your eyepiece collection: What do people say

bomberbaz

By bomberbaz
in Discussions - Eyepieces

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mikeDnight

mikeDnight

Posted
Posted

After buying my current telescope, an FC 100D, i decided to simplify my kit by selling off my 2" eyepieces and diagonal. It may seem counter intuitive as the scope is a terrific RFT, but it is so light weight it just seemed silly carrying a case of unnecessarily heavy eyepieces around. I sold off my 31 and 20mm Naglers, a 13mm ethos and a 2" dielectric diagonal. I replaced the 2" diagonal with a superb Tak prism for use with my 3.5, 5, 7 & 10mm Pentax XWs and have been wondering which 1.25" eyepiece of longer focal length would best suit my needs as a replacement for the Naglers. I've played around with a friends 24mm Panoptic which was a serious contender and a few other not so good wide field eyepieces. I even considered a standard plossl or Takahashi's 30mm LE, as I love the clean transparent images they give. However, looking back I cherished my 20mm Nagler more than the others as it gave a wonderful dark sky background and great contrast, so I decided I'd be willing to forfeit field of view for a slightly higher power high contrast view. As it happens a friend is reluctantly selling a 20mm Pentax XW and so I'm grabbing it while its available. The XWs are among the best eyepieces I've ever used so I'm very happy as it also matches the rest. A lone 24 Pan would simply not look right among my XWs and would forever niggle me. Silly I know!

Mike

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Paul73

Paul73

Posted
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I have just enough eyepieces to make sure that my scope can operate at its best regardless of target. All I need is a 2" UHC and Hbeta filters.

Fortunately there is still room to upgrade in terms of FOV. And, I have recently aquired a second scope.....

Paul

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Stu

Stu

Posted
Posted

...I think Stu has to be the winner in that race!

I resemble that comment ;)

Actually I have 14 eyepieces and 8 scopes, only a little bit worse than Shane :).

Does that mean I need to sell a scope or buy two new eyepieces? ;)

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Paul73

Paul73

Posted
Posted

Three justications:

1/ Fortunately I have enough eyepieces that new purchases are on a 1 in, 1 (or 2) out basis. Selling offsets the cost nicely provided that I don't pay too much attention to the ££ in / £££ out ratio....

2/ Otherwise I go for the "It isn't an Ethos. Therefore I am making the financially responsible choice.". That way I can feel happy with just about any EP purchase.

3/ I don't like to disappoint my wife. She is convinced that I buy new Astro kit on a weekly basis. She also enjoys being right.........

Paul

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
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More seriously, I tend to justify a new EP on the basis that I either am constrained by the limits of the old (i.e. I see its defects, or want more FOV), or there is a gap in the collection. Now having a collection consisting of a Vixen LVW 42mm, TV Naglers 31mm T5, 22mm T4, 17mm T4 and 12mm T4, plus a Pentax XW 10mm, TV Delos 8mm, Pentax XW 7mm and Vixen SLV 5mm as the main set, plus a MaxVision 24mm 68 deg and William Optics 7.5-22.5mm zoom for travel, and a Vixen Ortho 25mm for H-alpha solar in the Solar Spectrum kit, the "gap" argument might seem a bit far fetched. However, for planetary I would like a 9mm as well, just to tune optimally to seeing, and perhaps a 6mm both for the 80mm F/6 and for those nights of great seeing in the C8. Besides, the jump from 17mm to 12mm in the T4 Naglers is a bit large. I used to have a 14mm UWA, with slightly short eye relief, which was replaced by the 12T4, but I now do miss the intermediate magnification. The Morpheus 14mm would fit nicely. Again, this is rather a luxury situation, but I like tuning the exit pupil to the sky transparency and surface brightness of the DSO under scrutiny. When hunting very faint objects, I find that I sometimes wonder if I am seeing a spurious reflection in the optics (e.g. reflection of the eye), especially when there is more light around than there should be, or there is a bright star in the FOV. By switching between EPs you can often rule this out (or confirm it ;))

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