Got ~£120 to spend on some accessories

[BeerMe]

With Christmas now out of the way, I'm able to spend a little cash on some badly needed accessories.  Only a little though, the absolute most is £140 which is actually what I paid for my lil Heritage 130p.

My current accessories are only the 25mm and 10mm stock EPs that came with it, and a Planisphere I picked up.  The 25mm is decent and, like most it seems, the 10mm is poor.

When I knew a month ago that I'd have some money to spend on some accessories I started thinking about what gaps I needed to fill (lots) and what were  the best EPs for my budget.  I had initially settled on a 32mm and 9mm BST Starguider, a 2x Barlow and a Cheshire Collimator.  The Cheshire is a must obviously, and the EPs and Barlow  (~£20 on the Barlow) are of decent enough quality and fill a lot of gaps, giving me down to 4.5mm which is close to the scopes max power and still have comfortable viewing.  

Going down this road would stretch my budget to the max unless I can pick up the EPs second hand, and the BSTs are pretty rare in that department.  I've seen some recommendations for the gold-line Plossls with their 66° FOV and long eye relief, these can be had for either  £17 from China or £36 from the UK which is reasonable.  I've also noticed that BST do a cheaper line that isn't branded either Explorer or Starguider - does anyone have any experience with these or the gold-line Plossls?

Would anyone go for different strength eyepieces than the 32/9/Barlow I mentioned?

[happy-kat]

I manage with a collimation cap.

Alscollimationaid is free and a tool to help.

16mm is my most used eyepiece. My highest powered is 6mm and the conditions are not always good enough for it.

[nightfisher]

To make you money go a little further you could look at GSO/Revelation plossl`s the 12mm is okay so is the 15mm but not as good as BST explorers

[BeerMe]

A Cheshire and a Cap both basically do the same job - centre your eye down the focuser tube, right?  What is the actual difference between them?

20 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

I manage with a collimation cap.

Alscollimationaid is free and a tool to help.

16mm is my most used eyepiece. My highest powered is 6mm and the conditions are not always good enough for it.

 

[happy-kat]

Price!

There are probably technical collimation differences but I haven't researched those. I manage with the cap.

[newbie alert]

If you cant use your 10mm its either the seeing conditions not good enough or you are maxing out on the power of your scope..if youre using a 20mm and add a 2x barlow then in reality your using a 10mm eyepiece..so have that in mind when you purchase the next items..

[BeerMe]

11 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

If you cant use your 10mm its either the seeing conditions not good enough or you are maxing out on the power of your scope..if youre using a 20mm and add a 2x barlow then in reality your using a 10mm eyepiece..so have that in mind when you purchase the next items..

The scope is 650mm focal length so the theoretical max magnification is 260x (2.5mm) and the recommended max magnification is 130x (5mm) so my current 10mm is certainly not maxing out the power of the scope.  I know that the scope can handle much better than I have available, I'm just trying to work out the best approach to get there

[John]

Neither of the stock eyepieces is particularly good quality but the 10mm is notably poorer than the 25mm. 3 element achromatic huygens type eyepieces (which both the stock ones are) don't really do an F/5 newtonian optics any favours but they do get you started.

If you were to invest your £120 in at least a couple of good quality eyepieces such as BST Starguiders, they would stand you in good stead for any future scope upgrade you make as well as enabling your current scope to give of it's best.

With regards to collimation, I've used lasers and more complicated collimation tools but still find this simple cheshire eyepiece does the job quickly and accurately with my 12" dobsonian:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Skys-the-Limit-Cheshire-Collimator-for-Newtonian-Telescopes-short-/381769125804?hash=item58e3368fac:g:1WIAAOSwFV9X1qrn

 

 

 

[newbie alert]

42 minutes ago, BeerMe said:

The scope is 650mm focal length so the theoretical max magnification is 260x (2.5mm) and the recommended max magnification is 130x (5mm) so my current 10mm is certainly not maxing out the power of the scope.  I know that the scope can handle much better than I have available, I'm just trying to work out the best approach to get there

You arent taking into account your seeing conditions...

The max on my scope is 400 but ive only ever been able to use a 7mm on 2 occasions..my best eyepice is a 12mm..

[BeerMe]

1 hour ago, John said:

Neither of the stock eyepieces is particularly good quality but the 10mm is notably poorer than the 25mm. 3 element achromatic huygens type eyepieces (which both the stock ones are) don't really do an F/5 newtonian optics any favours but they do get you started.

If you were to invest your £120 in at least a couple of good quality eyepieces such as BST Starguiders, they would stand you in good stead for any future scope upgrade you make as well as enabling your current scope to give of it's best.

With regards to collimation, I've used lasers and more complicated collimation tools but still find this simple cheshire eyepiece does the job quickly and accurately with my 12" dobsonian:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Skys-the-Limit-Cheshire-Collimator-for-Newtonian-Telescopes-short-/381769125804?hash=item58e3368fac:g:1WIAAOSwFV9X1qrn

 

 

 

Thanks John, that was my thinking also.  Do you have any experience of the Skywatcher ultrawide angle range and how they compare to the Starguider range?  I'm tempted to go for the 6mm and 15mm Skywatchers, and I could then get the 32mm Starguider too, as well as the Cheshire.  

Hmm decisions decisions lol.

[BeerMe]

1 hour ago, newbie alert said:

You arent taking into account your seeing conditions...

The max on my scope is 400 but ive only ever been able to use a 7mm on 2 occasions..my best eyepice is a 12mm..

My seeing conditions are pretty poor at home but I can take the scope out to better sites so I'm not too worried about that.

There has been several times though, when viewing Jupiter and the Moon when I really wanted a bit more power.  As I said above, I'm mostly just wanting to fill any gaps so that on those occasions when the seeing is ideal, I'm not left wanting when it comes to my EP selection ?

[Ricochet]

14 minutes ago, BeerMe said:

Thanks John, that was my thinking also.  Do you have any experience of the Skywatcher ultrawide angle range and how they compare to the Starguider range?  I'm tempted to go for the 6mm and 15mm Skywatchers, and I could then get the 32mm Starguider too, as well as the Cheshire.  

Hmm decisions decisions lol.

I've used the 15mm ultra wide and it was awful, not a patch on the Starguiders. 

[John]

14 minutes ago, BeerMe said:

Thanks John, that was my thinking also.  Do you have any experience of the Skywatcher ultrawide angle range and how they compare to the Starguider range?  I'm tempted to go for the 6mm and 15mm Skywatchers, and I could then get the 32mm Starguider too, as well as the Cheshire.  

Hmm decisions decisions lol.

If you mean the Skywatcher UWA 66 degree field of view range then they are OK in F/10 scopes but loose edge sharpness quite noticably at F/5. The 9mm is the better one in the range in this respect but none are as good all round eyepieces as the BST Starguiders.

The more recent Skywatcher UWA 70 degree range, I reviewed those here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/211960-skywatcher-swa-70-degree-eyepieces/

Not really suited to the 1.25" focuser of the Heritage 130 and would exceed your budget as well. I'd pick the BST Starguiders over these as well, as it happens.

 

[happy-kat]

Thought to share my 16mm is the maxvision and my 6mm is a William optics SPL the latter I got in a FlO price reduction sale but I've seen both come up second hand for good prices.