Using the new Eye Relievers

[John]

It's interesting to see peoples choice of eyepiece progression

My 1.25" set goes:

24mm, 17.3mm, 14mm, 10mm, 7mm, 5mm, 3.5mm and the 2-4mm zoom. Having lived with these for some time now I reckon the 17.3 is underused simply because I tend to go straight from 24 to 14 and I feel that I'd like something right at 6mm in the sequence because I find myself getting the 6mm Ethos out of the 2" case to fill in quite often. I'm happy that the zoom duplicates the 3.5mm fixed because the zoom is just so useful at 4mm and 3mm (and points in between)

I guess I could swap the 17.3mm (Delos) for a 6mm Delos to "fine tune" the set

I'd told myself that there would be no more changes but it's difficult to resist the temptation to fiddle around with things

 

[Geoff Barnes]

As a bit of an eyepiece virgin myself (could it be that makes you an eyepiece tart John?)

Do you use your 3.5mm and 2-4mm zoom specifically for detailed planetary/lunar viewing? As I'm looking to get an ultra wide angle eyepiece for such,  I'm not sure if I would be better off going for something like a 5mm, 7mm or 9mm and using my 2x Barlow.

Your thoughts would be appreciated. 

[John]

17 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

As a bit of an eyepiece virgin myself (could it be that makes you an eyepiece tart John?)

Do you use your 3.5mm and 2-4mm zoom specifically for detailed planetary/lunar viewing? As I'm looking to get an ultra wide angle eyepiece for such,  I'm not sure if I would be better off going for something like a 5mm, 7mm or 9mm and using my 2x Barlow.

Your thoughts would be appreciated. 

Ha, ha !!!

Depends on the scope I'm using but generally I use the short focal lengths for the moon, smaller planets, double stars, spotting faint planetary moons and the central stars of planetary nebulae.

Using a barlow / extender (if it's a good quality one such as a Powermate) can work very well to get these short focal lengths. I used to use a Powermate with my 13 and 8mm Ethos eyepieces to get "virtual" 6.5mm and 8mm Ethos's and the results were visually very good. The only drawback is that you end up with a long, heavy stack hanging out of your focuser !

The shortest Ethos that I now have is the 6mm but I have owned the 4.7mm and 3.7mm which deliver a whopping 110 degree field of view. Impressive performers, very large eyepieces and in the end I decided that the Pentax XW 5mm and 3.5mm did an even better job, still with a decently wide FoV and with less mass/weight.

I think using a decent barlow / extender is a good way to find out what and how higher powers work for you. Once you have some confidence that you will use those focal lengths reasonably often, you have the option of moving to dedicated eyepieces if you so wish.

If you don't want to splash out on a Powermate, the Meade TeleXtenders and Explore Scientific Focal Extenders offer a very similar experience for quite a few less £'s / $'s.

 

[Geoff Barnes]

Thanks John, a lot to digest.

My Barlow is the Japanese made Celestron Ultima 2x, so not too bad quality wise.

I must say I'm now being tempted by the Explore Scientific 4.7mm 82* eyepiece, which is a lot cheaper than many competitors and quite a compact size for the aperture. Too many choices!!!

[iPeace]

11 hours ago, John said:

I guess I could swap the 17.3mm (Delos) for a 6mm Delos to "fine tune" the set 

The 6mm Delos is the one that will "complete" (as if) the Newt Set for me.

[25585]

I have only two 2 inch eps generally for my Newts, a 35 Panoptic and the Orion Lanthanum LER 20mm 80 deg (though 40 is OK with the VX10L which is 1600mm FL).

Then Vixen 1.25 inch LVW range down from 17mm to 3.5mm inclusive, or maybe a XW used for diversity. A Paracorr 2 for the F5s 10 and 12.