How high should I go?

[catburglar]

I have a Meade LX 50 Mak with approx 2700mm focal length. My shortest eyepiece is a 12mm Vixen SLV giving around 225x magnification. This is probably the limit for Jupiter on most nights, but on the moon it feels like there's loads of detail still to come if I push to higher magnifications.

I don't really want to shell out for an eyepiece that only comes out of it's case once per year- should I go for a 10mm (giving 270x) or a 9mm (giving 300x).

I've not really had a chance to test the scope on Saturn/Mars yet but I'm wondering whether these mags are likely to be too much.

Any thoughts?

[mikeDnight]

You can go as high as you like providing the image remains sharp. Once the image starts to go soft, you've reached the limit of the seeing. E. E. Barnard, a world class observer, used X180 as his favourite power for planetary observing with the 36" Lick refractor. Often around X180 seems to be a good general planetary power from the UK. Lunar powers can often be pushed much higher, especially if both eyes are used in a binoviewer. You could use a barlow lens to extend your power range rather than needing more eyepieces.

Mike

[Merlin]

For splitting close doubles, magnifications can be considerably higher than for lunar and planetary observing. With the former we are only dealing with point sources, not extended objects.

[catburglar]

Thanks for the replies so far, but perhaps I should rephrase the question.....

I already have magnifications of x167 and x225. If my hope to use higher magnifications on the moon and possibly Mars/Saturn- would you make the jump to x270 or x300 next?

 

I'm picking these figures because I'm very happy with the SLV in terms of quality and comfort of the view and the options in that line are either 10mm or 9mm FL.

[Pondus]

For lunar I personally would choose 270x. (10mm). And Lunar is possibly the only target using 270x for the NeXT few years.

I can go to 340x With my 8"dob, but usually end up observing the Moon lower than that, even under best conditions (manual driven dob..)

For now I  think you can forget about high Powers on Saturn&Mars.

Mars will be very low next opposition, 2018, and Saturn will stay low for the NeXT few years.

However : Mars in 2020 have every chance of beeing quite spectacular for months....

 

Rune

Edited May 6, 2017 by Pondus

[Moonshane]

If you want to get more use get the 10mm or less use the 9mm

[rwilkey]

Jupiter excels at about 150x, so for this planet you need no more mag. 

[Dave In Vermont]

A friend of mine - in the UK - pushed it up to 300X on the Moon last night.

It was a Solomark 6mm Plössl that did this nearly unheard of deed - dodging clouds all the way!

Your mileage may vary -

Dave

[ollypenrice]

You can go to whacky magnifications but do you really see more detail? Try it on a terrestrial target like small but distant text. You can make it bigger but can you read it better? It's a good self-test to try. Try reading the text backwards to elmiminate prior knowledge.

7 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

 E. E. Barnard, a world class observer, used X180 as his favourite power for planetary observing with the 36" Lick refractor. 

Mike

 Yes! I think that calling Barnard 'a world class observer' might be the understatement of the century since, for many, he is the greatest telescopic observer of all time. Certainly for me. But let's not argue about that. If Barnard liked 180x with a 36 inch refractor I think we might all do well to shut up about the usefulness of 500x!

Olly

[catburglar]

Good suggestion....perhaps i should forget about a new eyepiece and find a 36 inch refractor 

[alan potts]

Personally I would go for the 10mm, I use the sam on my 180mm Mak and it holds up very well on the moon, albeit from probably a better seeing location. You can also use this amount of power on Mars as I have also done. For me the likes of Jupiter are beter around the x180 as has been said. Saturn can often handle more when seeing is good, say x250ish.

Alan

[Alien_Photons]

The planets tend to look better with contrast so that colour variations are easier to determine. With this in mind true colour and brightness of the eyepiece are arguably more important than sharpness hence lower powers being somewhat preferred. So slightly less power on the planets results in a brighter image which works for the above.

The moon works better when sharpness of the eyepiece is put first. Colour correction if its warm or cool is less important, brightness is important too but in my opinion not as much for planets the moon is plenty bright to put a good view at high powers.

To expanded on this my 9mm Delite is as sharp shows as much detail as the 7mm LV but it also shows more colour and contrast as you would expect at a lower mag. Both in a 2.5 powermate on the moon the Delite is still as sharp as the LV. If the LV was as good as the delite it might show more detail but to be honest I think my scope is not giving up any more than the 9mm delite in the 2.5 powermate which is 205x in a four inch scope. 50x per inch. So less mag brighter image bigger FOV and as much detail as I can make out with the 9mm Delite. The 7mm LV shows the same detail warmer colour smaller fov.

Its difficult to say which would suit you best in terms of mag. But I would ask is there a sharper eyepiece than an LV. The LV's are vey good (my own 7mm has been my best friend for a very long time) good at everything but if you want a specialised eyepiece for the moon then maybe you need to think differently and it might not be more expensive.

There is also a point that your scope presents its best image and your eyes work best. sometimes less is more even on the moon.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Alien_Photons