Need some ep advice

[Shaun Sr]

Hey guys thanks for all your help I've asked a few similar questions I have the Celeste Ron AVX mount with the 8HD edge and star sense I got to see Saturn and Jupiter it was pretty cool I thought I seem Pluto but maybe not so I have the 40 mm eyepiece that it came with and I have a 10 mm Delos.

 

I need to get at least one more eye piece I' if it were you and you were in my shoes having what I have, what size ep would you get and what degree field of view would you get?

Originally I was gonna get a 82 degree 14mm explore scientific and the previous scope came with a 25mm.  I dont knowing this 40mm is very useful.  But imma rookie lol.  

[John]

The Baader Morpheus eyepieces would make a lot of sense in your scope. They have a 76 degree field of view and are very good performers by all accounts.

You can (nearly) get 2 of those for the price of one Delos.

The 17.5mm Morpheus would be a great eyepiece to add to your others.

 

 

 

[SimM]

I have EdgeHD 800 with BP Hyperion 17mm EP and love the edge to edge definition and sharpness. The AFOV is 68 degree.

Baader Planetarium Morpheous 17.5mm EP has a slightly wider FOV - not much more. The AFOV is 76 degrees.

Morpheous would only be an advantage for a short F/5 or less setup.

At F/10 (or F/7 with the Reducer) both will work very well.

Not everyone can accommodate very wide AFOV EP - it's like looking around (into) the corners e.g. can't take it all in.

Simon

[Dr Strange]

17 hours ago, Shaun Sr said:

Hey guys thanks for all your help I've asked a few similar questions I have the Celeste Ron AVX mount with the 8HD edge and star sense I got to see Saturn and Jupiter it was pretty cool I thought I seem Pluto but maybe not so I have the 40 mm eyepiece that it came with and I have a 10 mm Delos.

 

I need to get at least one more eye piece I' if it were you and you were in my shoes having what I have, what size ep would you get and what degree field of view would you get?

Originally I was gonna get a 82 degree 14mm explore scientific and the previous scope came with a 25mm.  I dont knowing this 40mm is very useful.  But imma rookie lol.  

The 40 isn't really that much use. If you like the Delos line then a 17.5 and 14 would be good options. They have a very nice field of view with that scope and are very good eyepieces. If that is outside your budget or you want to economize to pick up the other items I am going to recommend to use with that scope I cannot say enough good things about the Explore Scientific 82 degree line of eyepieces. I had all of them except for the 30mm and they all performed flawlessly and well! With the 8HD scope I can my most used were the 18mm, 14mm, 11mm and 8.8mm.

Which leads me to my suggestions to really improve the performance of the EdgeHD 8". The biggest improvement would be the TEMPest fans from Deep Space Products in the US. It cuts cooling time in half. That is a huge difference and really makes observing much more enjoyable. Especially since you run them while observing since it will mean the scope, once cooled, will stay at the ambient temperature. More than anything else this is a game changer for the scope.

Second would be a 2"/104mm diagonal. It will mean you can take advantage of the wide field in the eyepieces as well as use the 2" barrel eyepieces. A combination of the Tele Vue shorty adapter SCT threaded to compression is the way to attach it to the back of the scope. A good diagonal is the Tele Vue Everbrite.

The 18mm ES 82 degree EP is a good option for this scope for a wider view of things but it needs a 2" diagonal. Along with it I would recommend either the 14mm or 11mm and the 6.7mm for those rare nights with really good seeing.   

[Shaun Sr]

18 hours ago, Dr Strange said:

The 40 isn't really that much use. If you like the Delos line then a 17.5 and 14 would be good options. They have a very nice field of view with that scope and are very good eyepieces. If that is outside your budget or you want to economize to pick up the other items I am going to recommend to use with that scope I cannot say enough good things about the Explore Scientific 82 degree line of eyepieces. I had all of them except for the 30mm and they all performed flawlessly and well! With the 8HD scope I can my most used were the 18mm, 14mm, 11mm and 8.8mm.

Which leads me to my suggestions to really improve the performance of the EdgeHD 8". The biggest improvement would be the TEMPest fans from Deep Space Products in the US. It cuts cooling time in half. That is a huge difference and really makes observing much more enjoyable. Especially since you run them while observing since it will mean the scope, once cooled, will stay at the ambient temperature. More than anything else this is a game changer for the scope.

Second would be a 2"/104mm diagonal. It will mean you can take advantage of the wide field in the eyepieces as well as use the 2" barrel eyepieces. A combination of the Tele Vue shorty adapter SCT threaded to compression is the way to attach it to the back of the scope. A good diagonal is the Tele Vue Everbrite.

The 18mm ES 82 degree EP is a good option for this scope for a wider view of things but it needs a 2" diagonal. Along with it I would recommend either the 14mm or 11mm and the 6.7mm for those rare nights with really good seeing.   

Thanks dr strange.  One question. Are the televue better than es 82s. Es where my original choice but got the TV instead.  And do I need anything bigger than  an 18mmm?:  

[DeathWarpedUp]

If we are talking about visual, then really you want to be looking at your scope in terms of its spec and basing your choices off of that.

Its an 8" sct (2032) F10, which lucky for you can handle quite a wide range and a lot of the nit picking about certain ep's won't affect your scope so much, you really do not need to buy top of the range TV's to get great views. Mid price range work well.

If you want a wide ep for that spec, the popular choices are the ES 38/68, or cheaper W/O Swan 40/70 or slightly cheaper Orion Q70 it all comes down to your budget. You will need a 2" diagonal for those though. As Shaun stated ES 82s are very good by all accounts, many prefer 68s however, and again it comes down to budget, and if you have a 2" diagonal to fit the thing in.

If you want something with a higher mag, get a baader zoom 8-24, it works great in a scope of your spec and in the long run can save a few quid on ep's, it gives you great flexibility and comes with an adaptor to fit both 1.25 ans 2" diagonals, it ill also help you later to decide if theres anything more specific you want. You really want to be out there looking at clusters, DSO, Nebula, working out what you want to be looking at, then a plan will form in your head regarding ep's and you can make a more informed choice, it is very confusing just guessing at EP's and gets very expensive quick.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by DeathWarpedUp

[Dr Strange]

4 hours ago, Shaun Sr said:

Thanks dr strange.  One question. Are the televue better than es 82s. Es where my original choice but got the TV instead.  And do I need anything bigger than  an 18mmm?:  

I think they are very similar. A German bloke got into a spot because he X-Ray'ed the ES 100 and the Tele Vue Ethos and they were pretty much identical in configuration. Here is a link to the article: http://www.svenwienstein.de/HTML/es_14mm_ethos_13mm_English.html The only reason I switched to Tele Vue is because up until recently Tele Vue gave free items to dealers who sold a certain amount of eyepieces and other equipment. So at shows they would sell their Tele Vue equipment at dealer cost because the value of the free stuff they got from Tele Vue for hitting certain sales targets was more than what they lost in profit from the sale at cost. They no longer do that as far as I know. So I sold my ES EP's and switched to TV. Had that option not been on the table I would still be using the ES's.

Don't get me wrong, Tele Vue makes a great EP but so does ES. And the ES is about 1/2 the price of the TV!

[Dr Strange]

As to anything wider than a 18mm... No, not really. Unless you are really into wide sweeping views of large to huge open star clusters and panning around the sky. If that is the case you should buy a small f/stop 80mm APO refractor and use it on a manual mount. Something in f/7.5 or (better) even lower). The SCT is kind of the Swiss Army Knife of scopes. It will do pretty much everything for you at a good price but it doesn't do anything super well. At f/10 the widest I would go is the 18mm. For example and from personal experience the 18mm will give you a good view of the Seven Sisters (M45 Pleiades) although you can't get all of it in the EP. You do get most of it. The same applies to other large open clusters. 

If you really want to compliment the SCT, and the EdgeHD is a very good SCT that gives you close to APO refractor like views, I would suggest getting an Explore Scientific 80mm FCD100 or FCD1 APO. Mount it on top of the SCT. You can save the money you would have spent on the 2" diagonal and put it towards the ES since it comes with a good 2" diagonal as well. Doing that takes the ES 80mm from £675 to £490. A decent savings and it gets you a new scope that will mount on top of the EdgeHD and can be used as a finder as well as a scope to go back and forth with. Use the 80mm for large objects and the SCT for smaller ones or to go deep in detail on a large object. 

[John]

4 hours ago, Shaun Sr said:

Thanks dr strange.  One question. Are the televue better than es 82s. Es where my original choice but got the TV instead.  And do I need anything bigger than  an 18mmm?:  

If you are going to get the 2 inch diagonal to fit the 18mm ES 82 I would definitely consider a longer focal length 2 inch eyepiece as well. An 18mm 82 degrees eyepiece barely justifies the 2 inch barrel fitting. I would be thinking about getting something in the 26mm - 30mm range with an 82 degree field of view to really exploit what the 2 inch format can deliver.

In the 8 inch SCT an 18mm 82 degree eyepiece gives you a true field of .74 degrees. A 28mm 82 (for example) shows you over 50% more sky. You will appreciate that when observing some of the larger deep sky objects and pairs of objects such as M81 and M82 which it's lovely to have in the same field of view.

Unless you are going to buy a wide field scope to compliment the SCT of course.

 

[DeathWarpedUp]

Just a tip with the highend stuff, at the price point between good mid and the highend you are basically getting in many cases less than a 5% improvement in experience. And even then the improvement is more often than not when using it in AP, and not viewing. The cost however is often a lot more than 5%. And visually more often than not barely noticable if it all.

The leap between budget and good is a lot higher than the leap between good and great. Half the stuff out there is clones of each other  and will do the job quite nicely, at that point it all comes down to the EP being within the limits of what you scope can handle. A lot of the time you are paying for the build of the kit and engineering of the kit itself  and sometimes just the brand name, not the view it gives.

Edited July 7, 2020 by DeathWarpedUp

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Some good suggestions already given, and of course ideally you might want ALL of them . The 40 mm Plössl that comes with the EdgeHD is a 1.25"type which is not ideal, but a 2" 40 mm wide-field EP can be great fun. The Delos 10 is a definite keeper, I would say. I have a Pentax XW 10mm in its place, but that was because the Delos didn't exist when I bought the XW10. I do have an 8mm Delos to sit between the XW 7mm and the XW 10mm, and it sees a lot of use on planets. The 14mm Delos replaced a Morpheus 14mm I did own, but didn't get on with due to some field curvature in the outer field. I hear the 14mm is the weakest in this respect in that series, the others are reported to be excellent and great value for money. I used to have a 40mm TMB Paragon (the TS Paragon and SW Aero are clones) was excellent for wide field viewing in my Celestron C8, once I got a 2" visual back and diagonal. I foolishly sold it after getting a second-hand 31mm Nagler. I now have a 42mm Vixen LVW. I also have a range of ultra wide EPs between the 42 and 31 mm wide fields and planetary bunch at 22, 17, and 12 mm. This is really a densely packed range, but something like a super wide 40 mm or ultra-wide 30-24mm would be handy for exploring larger DSOs, something intermediate at 14-17mm for smaller DSOs, and at a later stage perhaps something like a 6-8 mm  for extra planetary work at moments of good seeing would be useful.

I would certainly go and look for second-hand offers, as you can make great savings, and if an EP somehow disapoints, you can sell it at little or no loss

[DeathWarpedUp]

You know some people with 8" scts are comfortable with just a decent zoom and a good 38/68 or 70/40mm, which covers most things most of the time. Add a good UHC or OIII filter and the set is complete. All achievable for  £500 for the lot new. A chunk off that 2nd hand. This gives you a solid foundation.

Then spend some time with the scope, at that point, anything you are not happy with or wish to pursue will reveal itself to you, and information and advice given will tend to make more sense, and help with choices.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by DeathWarpedUp

[Shaun Sr]

20 hours ago, Dr Strange said:

As to anything wider than a 18mm... No, not really. Unless you are really into wide sweeping views of large to huge open star clusters and panning around the sky. If that is the case you should buy a small f/stop 80mm APO refractor and use it on a manual mount. Something in f/7.5 or (better) even lower). The SCT is kind of the Swiss Army Knife of scopes. It will do pretty much everything for you at a good price but it doesn't do anything super well. At f/10 the widest I would go is the 18mm. For example and from personal experience the 18mm will give you a good view of the Seven Sisters (M45 Pleiades) although you can't get all of it in the EP. You do get most of it. The same applies to other large open clusters. 

If you really want to compliment the SCT, and the EdgeHD is a very good SCT that gives you close to APO refractor like views, I would suggest getting an Explore Scientific 80mm FCD100 or FCD1 APO. Mount it on top of the SCT. You can save the money you would have spent on the 2" diagonal and put it towards the ES since it comes with a good 2" diagonal as well. Doing that takes the ES 80mm from £675 to £490. A decent savings and it gets you a new scope that will mount on top of the EdgeHD and can be used as a finder as well as a scope to go back and forth with. Use the 80mm for large objects and the SCT for smaller ones or to go deep in detail on a large object. 

Now you got my wheels spinning.  I was gonna get the 2 inch diagonal and I was thinking a 31mm nagler because of its reputation. That was gonna cost just under 900.  And now in looking at that fcd1 apo which is the same price and comes with the diagonal.  So its diagonal and 31 nagler.  Or diagonal and 80mm apo. 

[JeremyS]

2 minutes ago, Shaun Sr said:

So its diagonal and 31 nagler

Don't forget the Nagler 31 is very heavy ~1kg

[Louis D]

At f/12 in my 127 Mak, the cheap 30mm 80 degree Widefield clones do quite well across the field as is visible in this image (Agena UWA, 2nd from bottom):

The ES-82 at the bottom would be equivalent to the 31mm Nagler since it is basically a Chinese clone of the design.  The UWA eyepiece has the advantages of no CAEP or SAEP, less magnification distortion across the field, longer eye relief, more compactness, and much lighter weight than the ES-82/Nagler equivalents.  For under £70, it might be worth a look.

[Dr Strange]

8 hours ago, Shaun Sr said:

Now you got my wheels spinning.  I was gonna get the 2 inch diagonal and I was thinking a 31mm nagler because of its reputation. That was gonna cost just under 900.  And now in looking at that fcd1 apo which is the same price and comes with the diagonal.  So its diagonal and 31 nagler.  Or diagonal and 80mm apo. 

The 31 Nagler will be completely wasted on the SCT. The SCT has far too narrow a field of view to justify the 31 Nagler. The 31 will do well on the 80mm though.  

[John]

15 minutes ago, Dr Strange said:

The 31 Nagler will be completely wasted on the SCT. The SCT has far too narrow a field of view to justify the 31 Nagler. The 31 will do well on the 80mm though.  

I can think of at least one member here who uses the 31mm Nagler in their 8 inch SCT and gets superb results.

[Davey-T]

Just now, John said:

I can think of at least one member here who uses the 31mm Nagler in their 8 inch SCT and gets superb results.

And 10"SCT 

Dave

[Dr Strange]

16 hours ago, John said:

I can think of at least one member here who uses the 31mm Nagler in their 8 inch SCT and gets superb results.

I have the 31 Nagler and have used it in my EdgeHD 8 and 11. Truth in advertising I no longer have those scopes. I replaced them with a Mewlon 250. I have no other hobbies, take a sack lunch to work to save for spending in the hobby, scrimp and save other places, and justify my addiction ^H^H^H^H er ah I mean hobby spending by telling SWMBO that by allowing me my folly and the corresponding spending it keeps me out of the pubs.

Yes it gives a wider field than other EP's. Not the point. The SCT with that EP gives you a 1.25 degree FOV. Pretty nice for an SCT. With the 0.7 reducer for the EdgeHD it gives a 1.79 degree FOV. Better than the 1.25 degree but not by much when you compare it to a "fast" refractor. Which leads me to my next point. The place where the 31 really shines and is where it should be used is in a "fast" (low f stop) refractor. For example my Tele Vue NP101is with that EP gives me 4.71 degrees.  That is a huge difference. And justifies the $900 a 31 Nagler costs in my mind. I can and have gotten the entire Veil complex in the TV with the 31 Nagler and a OIII filter. That cannot be done with the SCT.

To put it in perspective the 80mm ES APO and that Nagler gives a whopping 5.3 degree FOV. And the 18mm ES 82 degree in the 80mm APO gives a 3.08 degree FOV. That is far better the 1.25/1.79 degree FOV the Nagler gives in the SCT. So if he wants the super wide field sweeping views he would be better served with the 80mm APO and the 18mm EP than spending $900 on a 31 Nagler for his SCT.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Dr Strange

[John]

16 minutes ago, Dr Strange said:

I have the 31 Nagler and have used it in my EdgeHD 8 and 11. Truth in advertising I no longer have those scopes. I replaced them with a Mewlon 250. I have no other hobbies, take a sack lunch to work to save for spending in the hobby, scrimp and save other places, and justify my addiction ^H^H^H^H er ah I mean hobby spending by telling SWMBO that by allowing me my folly and the corresponding spending it keeps me out of the pubs.

Yes it gives a wider field than other EP's. Not the point. The SCT with that EP gives you a 1.25 degree FOV. Pretty nice for an SCT. With the 0.7 reducer for the EdgeHD it gives a 1.79 degree FOV. Better than the 1.25 degree but not by much when you compare it to a "fast" refractor. Which leads me to my next point. The place where the 31 really shines and is where it should be used is in a "fast" (low f stop) refractor. For example my Tele Vue NP101is with that EP gives me 4.71 degrees.  That is a huge difference. And justifies the $900 a 31 Nagler costs in my mind. I can and have gotten the entire Veil complex in the TV with the 31 Nagler and a OIII filter. That cannot be done with the SCT.

To put it in perspective the 80mm ES APO and that Nagler gives a whopping 5.3 degree FOV. And the 18mm ES 82 degree in the 80mm APO gives a 3.08 degree FOV. That is far better the 1.25/1.79 degree FOV the Nagler gives in the SCT. So if he wants the super wide field sweeping views he would be better served with the 80mm APO and the 18mm EP than spending $900 on a 31 Nagler for his SCT.

All quite true.

I use my 31mm Nagler with my Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 refractor and the Lumicon O-III filter to get the whole of the Veil complex in as well - one of my favourite Summer sights

I was just pointing out that some people do use and enjoy the mighty "terminagler" in their SCT's and really enjoy that experience even if it is not the best value for money when bought solely for use with such a scope.

The 31mm Nagler costs the equivalent of $800 here. I got mine for much, much less by buying pre-owned. The ES 30mm 82 would produce pretty much the same effect in the SCT and costs considerably less of course.

 

 

 

 

 

[Davey-T]

As said it's used on all my scopes so earns it's keep, bought it new from Telescope House many years ago, they appear to have doubled in price since then but just inflation I guess.

With Peterson eyeopener is squeezes the max' FOV out of the SCT.

Dave

[Dr Strange]

3 hours ago, John said:

All quite true.

I use my 31mm Nagler with my Vixen ED102SS F/6.5 refractor and the Lumicon O-III filter to get the whole of the Veil complex in as well - one of my favourite Summer sights

I was just pointing out that some people do use and enjoy the mighty "terminagler" in their SCT's and really enjoy that experience even if it is not the best value for money when bought solely for use with such a scope.

The 31mm Nagler costs the equivalent of $800 here. I got mine for much, much less by buying pre-owned. The ES 30mm 82 would produce pretty much the same effect in the SCT and costs considerably less of course.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers mate. I thought you meant it was a really good choice just for an SCT. And I am sure some use it to get that 1.25 degree FOV which is nice for sure. However when it is opened up to multiple scopes especially the wide field ones and it is a great option. But in the OP's case I would say the 80mm APO would be a better option for the money since it really opens things up for him in terms of wide field. A 30mm ES EP would work too and be much less.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Dr Strange

[Shaun Sr]

On 06/07/2020 at 14:08, Dr Strange said:

The 40 isn't really that much use. If you like the Delos line then a 17.5 and 14 would be good options. They have a very nice field of view with that scope and are very good eyepieces. If that is outside your budget or you want to economize to pick up the other items I am going to recommend to use with that scope I cannot say enough good things about the Explore Scientific 82 degree line of eyepieces. I had all of them except for the 30mm and they all performed flawlessly and well! With the 8HD scope I can my most used were the 18mm, 14mm, 11mm and 8.8mm.

Which leads me to my suggestions to really improve the performance of the EdgeHD 8". The biggest improvement would be the TEMPest fans from Deep Space Products in the US. It cuts cooling time in half. That is a huge difference and really makes observing much more enjoyable. Especially since you run them while observing since it will mean the scope, once cooled, will stay at the ambient temperature. More than anything else this is a game changer for the scope.

Second would be a 2"/104mm diagonal. It will mean you can take advantage of the wide field in the eyepieces as well as use the 2" barrel eyepieces. A combination of the Tele Vue shorty adapter SCT threaded to compression is the way to attach it to the back of the scope. A good diagonal is the Tele Vue Everbrite.

The 18mm ES 82 degree EP is a good option for this scope for a wider view of things but it needs a 2" diagonal. Along with it I would recommend either the 14mm or 11mm and the 6.7mm for those rare nights with really good seeing.   

I ordered the tempest fans from deep space. And I was gonna get the televue everbrite....will that open up the view to the delos eypieces over the stock diagonal or will it do nothing?

[Dr Strange]

9 hours ago, Shaun Sr said:

I ordered the tempest fans from deep space. And I was gonna get the televue everbrite....will that open up the view to the delos eypieces over the stock diagonal or will it do nothing?

I think you will really like the TEMPest fans! I did on mine. I really cut down the cool down time. With my 203mm it was ready to view with in about 20 minutes. By that I mean the flaring wooly stars were greatly tamed. 

The Everbrite will open up the view more. More importantly it will open up the scope to use of 2" eyepieces. That will help you get to that 1.25 degree field of view which really opens things up for you. 

[John]

As the Delos are 1.25" format eyepieces, you don't need a 2 inch diagonal to get the full field of view from them.

Being able to use 2 inch eyepieces does give you wider options though.