Which widefield eyepieces for 8" 900mm Bresser Newtonian?

[saxon]

After years of wanting a telescope and messing with binoculars around 15 years ago I bought a Bresser Messier 8" 900mm (f4.5) N203 Newtonian and had a lot of fun looking at both planets, the moon and galaxies/neubulae.  Eventually I added an ioptron Gotonova Go-to to the scope and that certainly made it easier and more fun to use.  The telescope came with a selection of very cheap eyepieces and these got me going but eventually I bought a Vixen Lanthaneum Ultrawide 68 degree 5mm eyepiece to give me higher quality views of the planets.  It's still the only high quality eyepiece I own.  I did buy an Antares W70 18mm eyepiece too but found in my fast scope it did suffer from distortion at the edges and was nowhere near as good as the Vixen Lanthaneum (and nowhere near the price!)

Unfortunately due to problems with my ankle and a series of operations I haven't done astronomy for about 5 years, however I am more mobile again now and have been keen to get my scope out of storage.  Imagine my horror when I retrieved the mount from the garden shed to discover a rusting hulk of metal, broken spreader, rusted optical tube clamps, broken counterweight locking knob and a Goto system that no longer powered up!  The OTA itself has thankfully been stored in the house so is fine.

Having considered servicing the mount I dismissed this as likely too expensive.  I momentarily dreamed of buying my dream Celestron CPC 9.25 scope and junking the lot, but then I remembered that the company I work for are currently making redundancies...   Anyway I spotted the new version of my Bresser Exos 2 mount with the Bresser Star Tracker Goto on sale for £499 and just purchased it for delivery later this week.  I'm very excited to be getting it and have plans to put in a hollow concrete block pier on the patio to facilitate easy setup.  I'm thinking of treating myself to a nice eyepiece to observe faint fuzzies and nebula and would greatly welcome some advice as the Lanthaneum covers me on planets. 

Can anybody recommend a nice eyepiece for the purpose with decent eye relief, decent optics to the edge of a F4.5 scope and ideally at least 68 degree FOV for under around £250?

I'd particulalry welcome guidance on whether 18, 24 or even more would be best.

At present I am leaning towards the Explore Scientific 68 and 82 degree range specifically:

82 degree 14, 18 or 24 (£138/£155/£225)

62 degree 20 or 24 (£120/£138)

I also do not have a decent barlow ( a cheap and nasty one came with the scope).  Given my 5mm Vixen gives 180x mag for planets on a 900mm scope that could be useful as I understand max mag on an 8" Newt is around 400X.  If I do get a 2x barlow then is there any advantage to the 2" Explore scientific one (£138) over the 1.25" (76)?

My seeing conditions are good I live in a village with no streetlights in the South Downs.

Grateful for any advice,

Saxon

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by saxon
correction

[Louis D]

If that scope has a 2" focuser, I'd recommend the 30mm APM Ultra Flat Field for wide field scanning and observing.  I measured mine as having a 73 degree apparent field of view and it is quite sharp at f/6.  I've read reports of it being sharp to the edge to at least f/5.  It is easy to use with eyeglasses.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Louis D

[Timebandit]

 

 

Hello and welcome to SGL and finding the hobby again👍

 

You scope is relatively at F/4.5 therefore does need a well corrected eyepiece at these faster ratios. Therefore as you seem to be hinting that you need something in the 18 to 24 range. If your scope has a 2" focuser then i would opt and suggest the Nagler 20mm T5 ,this can be used with fast scopes such as yours, it has lots of eye relief and 82d fov and optics are very sharp . These I understand are no longer available new ,but can be picked up used at around your budget. I own one of these and is very good in my fast reflector Dob as well as my refractor. I hope this helps

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by Timebandit

[Second Time Around]

The 24mm APM UFF has had excellent reviews and has plenty of eye relief.  Cost is only about £150. In fact I'll probably get one for my f/4.8 DOB.