Best upgrade for DSOs

[coolhandluke]

Hi again guys. Had an amazing night viewing again tonight seeing the mind blowing Andromeda for the first time as well as Whirlpool galaxy and some other bits. Wanted to see some clusters but ran out of time.

I am now wondering what would be the best upgrade for the scope? I was going to get a Celestron Xcel 5mm for looking at planets but have got very excited about DSOs in the last couple of days. So what do you think would be the best upgrade for viewing nebula, galaxies, clusters etc. I have only really been using my 20mm EP that came with my skywatcher scope, although this seems good, would it be better to upgrade it to a better model, or would a bigger size be better? Also I have been wondering about a UHC filter, would this be a better idea? Budget will be around the £60-80 mark.

All help welcome

[ngc2403]

if you are thinking of looking at faint nebula then i would suggest you get a nebula filter or narrow band filter like a H alpha filter or H beta for looking through.

am not sure how better to look at galaxies tbh

hope this helps

[russ]

Well my single best upgrade for looking at Nebulae was the 2" Orion Ultrablock filter. It's a narrowband filter and works wonders, although it's of no help with galaxies. Nothing short of a dark sky will help with the galaxies.

Price wise it just about fits in with your budget. The 1.25" version is £57 and the 2" version £66. I highly recommend a 2" filter though. You can screw this into the 2"-1.25" adapter and leave it in place while swapping eyepieces. Rather than having to screw the filter into each eyepiece.

Russ

[vemarstar]

Well i have the same scope as you, and iam very happy with it i have been buying the Meade 4000 range eyepieces so far i have bought the 40 /32/ 15 mm thinking mainly low powers as they are the best for DSO.

The Meade range are priced £35/40 so not to expensive to buy, iam happy with the 8 inch dob you can buy larger scopes but then it becomes harder to move around.

Filters i have 2 baader UHC-S AND 0 III but not used as much as i should use them.

[davo]

Cheers Rus. I just had a look at my 2 - 1.25" adapter and it has thread too i guess they all do but I hadn't thought of it!

[russ]

Dave, you won't regret a filter purchase for improving those views of Nebulae. Brightens and enhances the view considerably.

Regards

Russ

[Doc]

Cheers Rus. I just had a look at my 2 - 1.25" adapter and it has thread too i guess they all do but I hadn't thought of it!

I just had a look at mine and it also has threads. Didn't know this either. I was going for the 1.25" filter but will now consider a 2" cheers Rus.

[davo]

Dave, you won't regret a filter purchase for improving those views of Nebulae. Brightens and enhances the view considerably.

Regards

Russ

Rus, i believe we have similar skies (fairly darkish) and i'm not too bothered with light polution. What i would like to know is even with ok skies does the filter still do it's job?

Cheers

Dave