First real eyepiece purchase?

[leo82]

Hi all, I have the skywatcher heritage 130p with the supplied 25mm and 10mm, I also have a x2 Barlow. 

What size eyepiece should I buy next? Are the celestron x-cel eyepieces worth the cost or are there better ones within this price?

I like looking at dso such as the messiers and also craters on the moon.

Many thanks.

[John]

It's hard to beat the BST Starguiders for a £50 dobsonian eyepiece I think. The Celestron X-Cel LX's are slightly better finished but optically the BST's are just as good:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html

Any from the range would work fine with the Heritage 130. The 5mm would give 130x magnification or the 3.2mm will give 203x which is high but could be used on the Moon and planets under good conditions and with careful tracking of the scope. Alternatively you could go for the 8mm (81x) and then use it with your barlow lens for 160x high power viewing.

 

 

 

[Ricochet]

I agree with the Starguider suggestion. Given the similarity between the Starguider and the X-cel LX it is hard to justify effectively spending an extra 20% per eyepiece unless you specifically require 7 and/or 9mm eyepieces.

A set of 5-8-12-25mm Starguiders would do nicely. Possibly you might also find you want the 18 as well to break up the 12-25 gap. The 15 is too close to the 12 in my opinion and for high power I suspect that the 8mm+2x barlow will be a lot more useful than the 3.2mm eyepiece.

[leo82]

Thanks for the recommendation for the BST. I’m sold on them and they’re £20 cheaper!

Now, should I go for the 8mm or would a 12mm (medium power) down to 6mm (high power) using Barlow be the best option?

Thanks again.

[Ben the Ignorant]

I always start with the eyepiece that gives maximal field and minimal power; that would be 25mm in your case. If you don't many targets won't be framed well, especially large open clusters, and sweeping the Milkay Way won't be that fun. Even not-so-large deep-sky bodies are interesting to see at low power, I find, to examine them in their context.

How do they fit in the sky? is the question that is answered by the mini-maxi eyepiece.

[Ricochet]

I think it depends what you want to view with the new eyepiece. For lunar/planetary I'd choose the 5mm, for low power lunar/planetary and high power globular/small open clusters the 8, the best all round DSO eyepiece would be the 12 and the 25 would be the best for large objects and as a finder. The supplied 25mm is supposed to be better than the 10 so if your only buying one eyepiece I probably would start with one of the shorter eyepieces first, probably the 12 even though that really replaces your 10 instead of giving you an additional option. 

[leo82]

I always start with the 25mm to find and centre my target and have a look at and around it, then switch to the 10mm which ain’t the best so put the 25mm into the barlow and view at 12.5mm. My line of thinking is use the 25mm as normal then switch to the 12mm (BST will be a lot better than supplied 25mm and wouldn’t need Barlow), then switch to 6mm using the Barlow.

if I were to buy the 8mm would there be much difference between the 8mm and 12mm. Adding a Barlow to the 8mm would give me better magnification. I’m just worried of losing my target switching from 25mm to 8mm.

i could go 25,12.5,8,4mm.

so many options.

[Louis D]

See if FLO is still doing volume discounts on their BST Starguiders.

[leo82]

Just checked flo and they are still doing the offer, just got to wait for them to come into stock.

[happy-kat]

I've the same telescope I use my 16mm many times more than going for high power either my 10mm or my 6mm William optics Slp. So I'd go for the 12mm. A bigger magnified image can also be blurry, I prefer less magnification smaller tighter image.

[leo82]

@happy-kat

what kind of targets do you look for?

Do you suffer much light pollution where you are?

Thanks.

[happy-kat]

Love Jupiter.

Dso hunting though that's slow progress.

Haha I've 5 Street lights out front (one is 15 feet away another 30 feet) and one out back with seriously high neighbour's hedge. So observing is limited biggest issue is Street light reflection off eyeball so I hide eye under hat.

I've got 32, 25, 16, 10 and 6mm and a 1.6x short barlow. 16mm is most used  it's also my best eyepiece. I tend to buy when I see an opportunity of a great price on a super eyepiece. 

10mm Vixen slv, 6mm wo spl, 16mm maxvision

[leo82]

I haven't seen the planets yet, they're never around when I get out to observe!

This winter I want to see as many messier's as possible with this scope and learn some starhopping skills along the way!

I think I'm gonna need some good eyepieces to help me achieve this.

 

[happy-kat]

I've used the book Turn Left at Orion to find what I've found so far. I think you'll find a lot just with the 25mm you already have.

[leo82]

I have that book I shall dig it out. Is your 25mm the supplied one or have you upgraded it?

 

[happy-kat]

It's the supplied one, the 32mm is a gso/revelation £30 ish it does the job I use that one too has maximum degree fov telescope can do.

[leo82]

Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.

[RT65CB-SWL]

There is/was a TeleVue 8mm Plossl in the for sale section if you are interested.

[leo82]

Just 1 last question, are they par focal?

Thanks.

[Ricochet]

The Starguiders are not parfocal, at least the 8 and 12 that I owned anyway. I believe that the X-cel LX series might be parfocal, but I only had the 7 (which coincidentally was parfocal with the 12mm Starguider) so I can't confirm it.

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, Ricochet said:

I believe that the X-cel LX series might be parfocal

If they're similar to the Meade HD-60 as purported by many reporters, then no.  I have the entire HD-60 set, and they are most definitely not parfocal.  I'll recheck sometime, but I recall having to constantly refocus going up or down through the various focal lengths.  That's not to say some aren't parfocal, but most adjacent ones are not.

[happy-kat]

None of my eyepieces are parfocal, it doesn't bother me as I'd rather have different eyepieces and experience different styles of eyepieces. 

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

None of my eyepieces are parfocal, it doesn't bother me as I'd rather have different eyepieces and experience different styles of eyepieces. 

All of my Pentax, ES, and AT AF70 eyepieces all focus at the shoulder, give or take a millimeter.  So do most of my plossls and my 17mm TV Nagler T4.  Televue publishes their focal plane position relative to the shoulder in their eyepiece tech specs.

Since I use a fixed distance coma corrector and a fixed distance refractor field flattener, it is important to me that my eyepieces focus within about 5mm of each other for best correction.

[happy-kat]

Your need's are specific the OP is just starting out and I'm sharing that it is not essential to have parfocal eyepieces.

[leo82]

It’s not really a deal breaker just wondered.

Thanks.