Heritage 100p Eyepieces

[DavidJM]

Newbie here with a Heritage 100P, I've already added a 15mm Meade 4000 china Plossl and a Revelation Astro 2.5x Barlow to the supplied Skywatcher MA 10mm, 25mm and 2x Barlow. As it is an f/4 scope I've read that plossls have to be high quality but as the aperture is 100mm and it's a low price scope more expensive plossls seem a bit overkill (not planning to add a 8" Dob for at least 12/18 months). So the question really is do I upgrade my 10mm and 25mm (probably Meade 4000 again) and will I see a significant benefit, believe with my eyesight I'm not going to get any benefit in going higher than a 28mm so unless advised contrary I don't think going beyond 25mm will help me much. As a guide I'm interested in DSO's not just planets

Thanks in advance

[Charic]

I favoured the GSO Revelation Astro Plössl  after testing Meade 4000 series and  TeleVue Plössl's, which have all been sold.

The GSO Revelations are  available from Astroboot, described as 52° afov. 

As for upgrading your present eyepieces, BST Starguiders will do you fine, their comfortable in use, a better field of view, and will work well on your 8" when it arrives?

Welcome to the SGL.

[ronin]

f/4 is a fast scope, the TV plossl's are going to be too costly, nice but at around £70 to £100 each not really worth it for the scope.

Starguiders are good and I have read they perform well down to around f/4.5, the 8mm would be a good alternative to the 10mm that came with the scope. Will say that different people and different scope are bound to give different results. The GSO/Revelation plossls tend to get good reports. Used to have a couple but cannot recall how good, but I kind of rapidly went beyond them (started buying used TV plossl's). The kind of next are the Vixen NPL plossls, they also get good reports - comments about the bodies feeling too plasticky but they seem to have produced good optics.

Problem is there are lots of plossl's. Alan at Skies the Limit who sells the BST's sell a "premium" plossl. Now Alan is good and his premium ones may be a worthwhile option, but there are no posts of pople with them. Also people will buy one and if they like it buy another one or two, but they do not generally buy 3 different plossls then compare one against another. So all you get told isthey were OK or not great.

One aspect is if you go for better then buy for a scope you may buy in the future, that way you have them for then.

[DavidJM]

1 hour ago, Charic said:

I favoured the GSO Revelation Astro Plössl  after testing Meade 4000 series and  TeleVue Plössl's, which have all been sold.

The GSO Revelations are  available from Astroboot, described as 52° afov. 

As for upgrading your present eyepieces, BST Starguiders will do you fine, their comfortable in use, a better field of view, and will work well on your 8" when it arrives?

Welcome to the SGL.

So bearing in mind I'm likely to go for a skywatcher 200p dob in about 18mths and will carry on using my 100P as it's so portable, would it be better to go for a BST for use in both (they are about as good as my budget/ wife will stretch too!), thinking 8mm BST to replace the 10mm MA skywatcher, seen that the BST's seem to get good reviews considering the price, great comments and thanks

[DavidJM]

39 minutes ago, ronin said:

f/4 is a fast scope, the TV plossl's are going to be too costly, nice but at around £70 to £100 each not really worth it for the scope.

Starguiders are good and I have read they perform well down to around f/4.5, the 8mm would be a good alternative to the 10mm that came with the scope. Will say that different people and different scope are bound to give different results. The GSO/Revelation plossls tend to get good reports. Used to have a couple but cannot recall how good, but I kind of rapidly went beyond them (started buying used TV plossl's). The kind of next are the Vixen NPL plossls, they also get good reports - comments about the bodies feeling too plasticky but they seem to have produced good optics.

Problem is there are lots of plossl's. Alan at Skies the Limit who sells the BST's sell a "premium" plossl. Now Alan is good and his premium ones may be a worthwhile option, but there are no posts of pople with them. Also people will buy one and if they like it buy another one or two, but they do not generally buy 3 different plossls then compare one against another. So all you get told isthey were OK or not great.

One aspect is if you go for better then buy for a scope you may buy in the future, that way you have them for then.

Thanks, seems to be making sense to consider the Starguiders with a view towards a good starting ep for both 100P and when I invest in a 200P, not overly comfortable in buying used, don't know enough yet as what to look out for, cheers again

[Charic]

2 hours ago, DavidJM said:

would it be better to go for a BST for use in both (they are about as good as my budget/ wife will stretch too!),

There's no reason why you shouldn't. But it will always be a personal choice when it comes to selecting eyepieces.

I'll leave some new eyepieces on the table for you, three Starguiders, and three Delos by Tele Vue. Everyone is going to take the Delos? but your going to have to pay me for them, your still going to take the Delos, UNTIL you try them and compare them to the Starguiders. You'll still probably want the Tele Vues, I actually did until recently, when I had the chance to own a few. The images they produced were good, but no greater than what my Starguiders were providing from the same site and conditions, so why do I need TV's over BST's when the cheaper optics did just as well. Yes the BST's lose out on a little field of view, and some static 20mm eye-relief across the range, but apart from that, under my skies, my scope setup  and using my one and only set of eyes, I saw no point in collecting any more!
 I recently sold them, the new users seem happy and I bought some new studio monitors from KRK instead, as I now believe my eyepiece collection is complete and works very well on my f/6 telescope.

I'm not saying the Tele Vue EP's  are pants, I still think their the best brand out there, on the right scope, and having the right conditions, but my scope does just as well on Starguiders, and a full set of Starguiders can cost less than a single New Delos, its not rocket science, its just a personal feeling and an experience, short lived with the Delos.

You may have a fast scope, and many folk would suggest the need for better corrected eyepieces to favour the faster scope, but consider your aperture too, there's room for headroom here.
Any and every aperture is restricted, to how much detail it can produce, but for visual use, bigger is often better. Having the most expensive corrected premium eyepieces still won't bring the full joy of what a larger scope and eyepiece combination can provide under the right conditions.

I think the cheaper Plössl's will still work well on axis on your present scope, possibly losing  a little detail at the edge of the field of view, maybe not as you only have a small aperture, whereas with a larger aperture, any edge of field aberrations are more noticeable, sometimes requiring better optics to help correct any imperfections produced by the scope itself?  I don't look at the extreme edges of my field of view, I just move with the target, keeping it central.

Time and experience is the key to the answer here, plus there are many  other brands too, that no doubt will produce just as good an image, infact there's about 6 known brands that sell the same eyepiece, when you look at them carefully, although something may differ inside if you cared or knew where to look, but check their specifications and they all read the same, and mine has Starguider embossed on their bodies.  Itts just finding the one that satisfies your kneed. No matter what you buy, there's also a second hand market, so check in there also, for keeping costs down.

[jetstream]

6 hours ago, DavidJM said:

 As it is an f/4 scope

Yes that is a fast scope and many eyepieces respond to the use of a quality barlow, something about the light cone or whatever. This is my own personal experience on lunar/planets.

Could a decent ortho fit the bill? used with the 2.5x barlow? an 18mm Fuji (KK etc) would give 7.2mm fl for a mag of 55x if thats what your after. The 18mm ortho native (although narrow) will serve you well on many DSO such as the Veil with its 1.8 deg TFOV in your scope.

These eyepieces work well for any future upgrades,IMHO.

[DavidJM]

Thanks folks

great advice and lots to consider, think there are plenty of options and all really will come down to my own experience and use of the equipment, there are certainly lots to consider and already I can see that there is no right or wrong within reason, key is to plan ahead for the bigger scope when looking to add or update eyepieces considering my budget; think I'll look to upgrade the 10mm earlier and probably leave other eyepieces to when I go for a bigger scope, cheers guys