Best eyepiece for viewing Jupiter with Astromaster EQ114

[shyam]

Hello

what is the best eyepiece on celestron astromaster 114 eq newtonian to see jupiter a bit larger. I have at the moment 20 and 10 mm and 10 mm shows a bit better. So apart from these kindly suggest me eyepieces to have much closer view of Jupiter and other planets

regards

[rwilkey]

Hi Shyam, the planets, including Jupiter will always look like a pea through any telescope, but more detail can be teased out by more light grasp (of a bigger aperture), however, if you are looking to improve the view then an 8mm eyepiece will help at 125x, there are a number of different eyepieces in this range, not sure what is available to you in the area where you live. 

[shyam]

hello

 can get eyepiece online thats not a problem

[Richard Hather]

Hi Shyam, may I ask what your budget is and what type of eyepiece you already own?

An 8mm would certainly be the ideal power for a high power for your telescope would you want a big field of view?

Richard

[JOC]

Hi Shylam - I agree with the pea analogy - an 8mm may help, but it will still be a 'pea'.  Have you had a quick look at the pictures on this thread?

 

 

[happy-kat]

Also sitting and just being absorbed in observing Jupiter will help tease a bit more out and seeing and conditions do and will vary which will effect observing. 

[ronin]

Although the scope is 114mm diameter I half suspect that the magnification available is a bit limited. If I am correct the mirror is spherical so the image it produces for the eyepiece is not as good as it should be or as could be expected.

Jupiter will always be small, I have looked at it through assorted scopes and to be honest the small image produced by by a small refreactor was my best experience. Although small the image was sharp.

For an 8mm the usually obvious one is the BST Starguider, available under an assortment of names (TS NED, A-T Paradigm and others). At 125x that is likely as much as the scope will deliver and still produce an acceptable image.

There is a William Optics SPL 6mm around that is good for planets but at 166x I really guess it will be too much for the scope. The WO is another that seems to be available under other names, if I recall the Altair Lightwave is a rebrand.

You will have to search out a supplier that will ship to Kerala and that I half thing could be the main problem. If you order from the UK then the original supplier of the BST's was Alan at Sky's the Limit and he may be a first approach. Thinking that being one person then there may be more chance of him visiting the Post Office or whatever and finding out the postage costs relevant to you. Sort of person to handwrite the delivery label and drop it in to the relevant courier.

Are there any retailers in India that were appropriate ??

[shyam]

On 4/25/2017 at 18:34, Richard Hather said:

Hi Shyam, may I ask what your budget is and what type of eyepiece you already own?

An 8mm would certainly be the ideal power for a high power for your telescope would you want a big field of view?

Richard

Hello

Richard, 

i have a 10mm and 20mm plossl eye piece on a celestrone 114 eq newtonian , 

[Richard Hather]

10 minutes ago, shyam said:

Hello

Richard, 

i have a 10mm and 20mm plossl eye piece on a celestrone 114 eq newtonian , 

I think a good quality 8mm EP would be good for your scope any higher and it's pushing the limits of your telescope.

How much would you want to spend on this EP?

Richard

[Ricochet]

I agree with Richard, an 8 or 9mm eyepiece is going to be the optimum planetary eyepiece in your scope. As planetary viewing is dependant on atmospheric conditions you may want to consider getting an 8-24mm zoom so that you can adjust the focal length to match the atmosphere on any given night. The Baader zoom is well regarded but there is also a cheaper 8-24mm zoom sold under various names (Skywatcher, Seben, Vite to name a few) that gets decent reviews (unlike the 7-21mm zooms).

[Moonshane]

Consider that many of our members post from e.g. around 50 degrees north in latitude so Jupiter will be very low. Your latitude is about 10 degrees N so compared with my views at 53 degrees N, Jupiter will be a lot higher in the sky. This might help as you'll be looking through less atmosphere and therefore the image will be more stable. You might also be able to use more magnification than we can currently. The theoretical limit for telescopes in general is about 2x aperture in mm. This equates to 228x in your scope so a 4-5mm eyepiece. I do agree though this is likely to be too much and perhaps aim for something in between. A good option might be a 2x barlow lens which would make your 10mm a 5mm which I'd consider the absolute max and you could also maybe buy a 15mm and/or 12mm to then have 7.5mm and 6mm as well as native focal lengths.

[Rocket_the_Raccoon]

Hi! Shyam,

When you magnify an object in the sky by 100x, you also "magnify" the atmospheric disturbance by 100x. Given a precisely collimated optical system, high power viewing still requires very stable atmospheric condition (a.k.a. good seeing). Thus, please keep in mind that there will be times your high-power eyepieces have no use (even make things worse). Also, for the same reason, wait for a night with good seeing to give a final evaluation of your newly bought high-power eyepiece. The difference caused by seeing can be very dramatic!

Finally, remember that short focal length eyepieces of most classical designs (e.g. Kellner, Plossl, Orthoscopic, except Konig) have very short eye relief. They are not unusable but certainly would give inconvenience. Despite that, I have a 6mm Orthoscopic myself and is one of my favourite in viewing Jupiter. To the extreme end, I have a 3.6mm 4-elements eyepiece with unknown design but I seldom use it.

[johnha]

Hi Shyam,

I'm not enormously experienced but I have an old Tasco scope similar to your 114mm, f=900mm with (I believe) a spherical mirror. It came with cheap 1" eyepieces - SR4mm & H20mm. I have replaced these with a set of Mead MA 1.25" (Kellner I think) EPs (6, 12, 17, 20 & 25mm). The 12mm (75x mag in my case) gives me the best views of Jupiter followed by the 17mm, the 6mm give a larger disc but with much less detail & clarity. I have plans to try a 9mm and get a Barlow at some stage.

Hope this helps,

John.

[shyam]

On 27/4/2017 at 12:37, Richard Hather said:

I think a good quality 8mm EP would be good for your scope any higher and it's pushing the limits of your telescope.

How much would you want to spend on this EP?

Richard

hi

i ve no Idea how much does it cost? let me know list of ep for astromaster newtonian . So that i can accordingly seach on Online shopping

[shyam]

On 25/4/2017 at 21:40, ronin said:

Although the scope is 114mm diameter I half suspect that the magnification available is a bit limited. If I am correct the mirror is spherical so the image it produces for the eyepiece is not as good as it should be or as could be expected.

Jupiter will always be small, I have looked at it through assorted scopes and to be honest the small image produced by by a small refreactor was my best experience. Although small the image was sharp.

For an 8mm the usually obvious one is the BST Starguider, available under an assortment of names (TS NED, A-T Paradigm and others). At 125x that is likely as much as the scope will deliver and still produce an acceptable image.

There is a William Optics SPL 6mm around that is good for planets but at 166x I really guess it will be too much for the scope. The WO is another that seems to be available under other names, if I recall the Altair Lightwave is a rebrand.

You will have to search out a supplier that will ship to Kerala and that I half thing could be the main problem. If you order from the UK then the original supplier of the BST's was Alan at Sky's the Limit and he may be a first approach. Thinking that being one person then there may be more chance of him visiting the Post Office or whatever and finding out the postage costs relevant to you. Sort of person to handwrite the delivery label and drop it in to the relevant courier.

Are there any retailers in India that were appropriate ??

i can look in Amazon thats the only hope i have.

[shyam]

18 hours ago, johnha said:

Hi Shyam,

I'm not enormously experienced but I have an old Tasco scope similar to your 114mm, f=900mm with (I believe) a spherical mirror. It came with cheap 1" eyepieces - SR4mm & H20mm. I have replaced these with a set of Mead MA 1.25" (Kellner I think) EPs (6, 12, 17, 20 & 25mm). The 12mm (75x mag in my case) gives me the best views of Jupiter followed by the 17mm, the 6mm give a larger disc but with much less detail & clarity. I have plans to try a 9mm and get a Barlow at some stage.

Hope this helps,

John.

john

can you elaborate it, whats barlow ?

[Richard Hather]

7 minutes ago, shyam said:

hi

i ve no Idea how much does it cost? let me know list of ep for astromaster newtonian . So that i can accordingly seach on Online shopping

You can spend anything from £50-£550 on any 8mm EP.

There are 2 things that really push the price of an EP up and it's the brand and the amount of field of view.

Eye relief again is something you have to consider will you be wearing glasses when observing?

It all boils down to how much you want to spend and then work from there.

Richard

[johnha]

5 hours ago, shyam said:

john

can you elaborate it, whats barlow ?

It's usually an eyepiece accessory with a lens that increases magnification - they come in various multipliers: 2x, 3x etc. Since reading a few posts, it sounds like your scope may have one built in. My 114mm f=900mm tube is about 100cm long - if yours is about half that, then it's likely it has a 2x Barlow built in.

[happy-kat]

So you won't want to then additionally use a barlow as you might get very degraded views.

[jetstream]

These are good.

http://www.amazon.in/Orion-8883-6-0mm-Planetary-Eyepiece/dp/B0011V9JNQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1494970382&sr=8-10&keywords=eyepieces+for+telescope+edge+on

I just did the exchange, very expensive. If you can order from the States and ship the Zhumell's are the same eyepiece made by Long Perng.

https://www.telescopesplus.com/collections/telescope-eyepieces/products/zhumell-z-series-planetary-telescope-eyepieces

[Dave In Vermont]

7 hours ago, jetstream said:

These are good.

http://www.amazon.in/Orion-8883-6-0mm-Planetary-Eyepiece/dp/B0011V9JNQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1494970382&sr=8-10&keywords=eyepieces+for+telescope+edge+on

I just did the exchange, very expensive. If you can order from the States and ship the Zhumell's are the same eyepiece made by Long Perng.

https://www.telescopesplus.com/collections/telescope-eyepieces/products/zhumell-z-series-planetary-telescope-eyepieces

That link to Amazon is showing a price in what?  14,945.00 - something. I'd strongly suggest looking elsewhere! 

But you're quite right - those are very good eyepieces for planets and other denizens of our local neighborhood.

Happy Hunting!

Dave

[JOC]

Shyam, with the best will in the world Jupiter is never going to look as spectacular as say, the moon. no matter what EP you use.  Even if you don't bother reading the text just take a scroll down the page and look at the images posted in this thread:

 

You don't need to buy EP's esp. for your telescope - any 1.25" EP will fit, I would suggest that you don't need to buy anything much more powerful that what I find works well in my 8" Newtonian - this tends to hit a 'sweet spot' at around 7.5mm which gives my scope about 160 times magnification. 

I've looked up your telescope and it appears to have a focal length of 1000mm 1000/160 means that could be achieved in your telescope at around 6.0mm-6.5mm I'd be surprised if you needed magnification much more than that unless your conditions or telescope are much better than mine.