Which eyepiece do you REALLY use most?

[celestron8g8]

I never bought any real expensive EPs' . But I did buy a few Celestron Ultimas , 18mm, 7.5mm , 2x Barlow and not sure but I think I have the 10mm also . But my favorite and most used are the original Celestron 25mm plossi that came with my scope when I bought it and a Celestron 32mm plossi I bought . 

[swamp thing]

At a guess........

My 20mm Nagler is probably the one with the most focuser time.

[N3ptune]

With my 200x1000 reflector. The eyepiece which has the most observation time is by far my lovely ES 4.7mm (212x), that's the one I useto sketch the moon.. sketching takes time that's why it's my most used EP. In second place it's the 25mm Xcel LX (40x / 80x with the Barlow)

[timwetherell]

3 hours ago, jabeoo1 said:

Back along I 'rationalised' my EP's.  I felt that 6 was too many.  It only encouraged constant fiddling around between focal lengths, and really all I wanted to do was settle down behind an EP, & soak up the views.  

Yup, that's exactly what I found myself doing all the time when I had the very similar focal lengths!

[25585]

55mm plossl (finder), 35mm Panoptic or 32mm plossl, 20mm erfle, 10mm Pentax XW + Paracorr2 when using my dob or for extending eye relief if needed. The 32mm gets most barlow use, x2 or x2.5.

[RobertI]

I have more scopes than eyepieces, and often choose the scope to match the night's targets, rather than the eyepiece. But regardless of scope, I think I use the 10mm Hyperion most often which gives 42x in the 72mm frac, 65x in the 130P, 100x in the Tal 100RS and 200x in the C8 (or x130 with reducer). I sometimes use the 5mm BST in the shorter fl scopes and the 21mm Hyperion in the longer fl scopes depending on the target, but the 10mm seems to hit the sweet spot most of the time.

@timwetherell - what scope do you use?

[niallk]

I've the same EPs Tim in my 15" f4.5. I find that I use them all. I find I'm often using the 6E on planetary nebs, and also when I view planets/lunar. For galaxies I do love the 17E and 10E, and haven't had enough sessions yet with the recently acquired 31T5, but it performed beautifully on the Veil with an O-III under truly dark skies in west Kerry.

[estwing]

21 Ethos..twice this year..

[timwetherell]

1 hour ago, RobertI said:

 

@timwetherell - what scope do you use?

I have a 7" refractor, 31 Nagler gives me about 40x magnification and 2° true field.

[Charic]

Of the 18 eyepieces in my collection, a 12mm is normally the last one I find in the focuser, when its time to put the scope away!
For my eye, a 12mm seems to give the most visually appealing image on this scope, however, not the largest image?

Apart from my 32mm Panaview, I can't actually tell which eyepiece I'm using during a session when it comes to the BST's or the Revelations, until after the session, especially if/when I lose track with my eyepiece storage during the course of the night? I'll go through all my eyepieces if necessary, as one of them, on the night, will fit the bill, providing the seeing is ok.

The 12mm also fits the  'theory' that allows my scope to provide optimal performance when using an eyepiece that is twice the focal ratio.

[Highburymark]

Leica ASPH zoom, by some margin, in all scopes. Then Panoptic 24.

[Moonshane]

9 hours ago, jabeoo1 said:

Back along I 'rationalised' my EP's.  I felt that 6 was too many.  It only encouraged constant fiddling around between focal lengths, and really all I wanted to do was settle down behind an EP, & soak up the views.  I aimed for 3, and this proved trickier than I first imagined.  

The 3-6 TV Zoom for anything high magnification, with the bonus of adjusting to seeing was a simple choice. 

My most used was the 15mm TV Plossl, (which I no longer own).  I loved everything about that EP, and its qualities pushed me into buying an 8mm & 17mm Ethos.  It seems in hindsight obvious now, but both the 8E & 17E share the 2 major attributes I admired with the 15mm Plossl. 

A SGL member pointed out to me that (I equally thank and dislike him for it !), an 8mm Ethos will frame roughly the same area of sky as the 15mm Plossl. The 8mm Ethos covers 1 of the qualities of my old favourite, with the added bonus of a sensible increase in magnification.  

A 17mm Ethos covers the wide views & gives me close to the magnification of my 15mm Plossl. 

I imagine over the sessions they will all get an equal share of the action which was not the case before. 

Good to know that you can replace two Ethos with one plossl

[Piero]

Both my zooms mainly.

The only eyepiece which in my scopes is used more for fun than fun/need is the lunt20. It was bought as a good companion for a future larger dob. 

[jetstream]

42 LVW (fracs) 30 ES 82, 20 Lunt HDC and then my zooms for most everything in the solar system.

[timwetherell]

10 hours ago, estwing said:

21 Ethos..twice this year..

Mmmm, I know just how you feel! In the South West we've haven't really had one good moonless, cloudless night all summer  And I fear this is becoming the new "normal"

Looking back over my 1977 notebooks I was observing on 27/8/77 28/9/77 3/9/77 4/9/77 5/9/77 7/9/77 11/9/77 ... well you get the picture. 

[estwing]

problem is I only observe from very dark skies in Wales mainly....more effort on my behalf me thinks!

[YKSE]

My most used EP is Leica zoom, that's with C8, faint fuzzies, mostly mag 11-13 galaxies, have been my targets. 120x to 240x are just about right for these galxies of size 0.5' to 2'. In second place is 31mm aspheric for larger galaxies and as finder EP.

My understanding, as shown with others comments, the most used EP is largely dependant on scopes focal ratio and observing target, e.g. double stars observers, they're likely to use EPs for 100x-400x more often for their work, same as observers of small planetary nebulas; for observers of larger faint nebulas, EPs giving exit pupil 4-7mm are much more common; for solar H-alfa or white light, sub 100x EPs are among the most used, etc, just another horses for courses

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, timwetherell said:

In the South West we've haven't really had one good moonless, cloudless night all summer  

I did a double take until I realized you were talking about Britain.  It's almost always cloudless in the American desert southwest.

[timwetherell]

12 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I did a double take until I realized you were talking about Britain.  It's almost always cloudless in the American desert southwest.

Yes we in cloudy old England can only look with envy at the pristine skies across the pond  Western UK seems particularly bad I guess because of the prevailing winds across the Atlantic?

[DRT]

For the past 18 months I think my most used eyepieces have been the ones I use in my solar scopes: Panoptic 35mm in my Baader wedge and Evo150; 32mm TV Plossl in my Quark and Altair 152 and 8mm Ethos in my Lunt 50 Ha. My Pan 24mm gets a fair bit of use with my OMC140.

I am in the process of replacing my Ethos EPs with a set of Delos as they just were not being used.

[scarp15]

Its been June since I last looked through any eyepiece, when back in the slipstream for the September new moon, 21 Ethos will receive most use.

[niallk]

With my recently acquired 50mm Lunt, forget the Ethos, Nagler or the really beautiful Pan24: a €35 TS Optics 9mm 'Super' Plossl is on track to become my most used EP

It serves up lovely views, and I screw a 1.5x below lens into the filter threads to give similarly great ~6mm views.  I presently don't see any reason to rush to replace it!  The main competition is my 13T6 + PM2.5x... the uber compact rebadged GSO works very well indeed tbh for Ha...

[michaelmorris]

As most of my visual observing targets are double stars, then it's mostly higher magnification eyepieces.

My Televue 8mm and 11mm Plossls get the most outings with my University Optics 7mm HD orthoscopic next on the list.

The only other two eyepieces I use are my Televue 32mm Plossl and Nagler 13mm.

Reminder to self - Consider taking my Meade 5000 20mm SWA to Kelling Heath to sell at the Astroboot.

[Piero]

Expensive when bought new but the docter is also an eyepiece I use a lot, w/ w/o barlow. Love that eyepiece. Razor sharp! 

[DeepSkyMan]

I've a pretty limited selection but the mainstay of it are my TV 32mm Plossl, 17mm T4 Nagler and 22mm T4 Nagler.  Of these and bearing in mind the lousy skies we've had this year in central Scoltland, by far the most used is the 32mm Plossl.