Eye Piece help

[Mark68]

Hi,

Ive got a birthday coming up in November and looking to get an eye piece to be able to see Jupiter and Saturn and hopefully andromeda

I have a skywatcher heritage 100 at the moment( not the best I know).

Currently I only have the standard eye pieces that come with the scope. 

I was looking at getting this one

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-uwa-planetary-eyepieces.html#faq

I haven't got loads of money, but at the same time don't want to waste it by bit getting a decent one. 

Can anyone advise if this is any good or if not one that would be without spending a lot of money

 

Thanks

[banjaxed]

Not had any experience with those eyepieces but for a little bit more outlay you could get a BST Starguider which are excellent eyepieces and highly thought of by a lot of our members.

[Mark68]

3 minutes ago, banjaxed said:

Not had any experience with those eyepieces but for a little bit more outlay you could get a BST Starguider which are excellent eyepieces and highly thought of by a lot of our members.

Thanks. 

This one is still affordable. Would you know if 3.2 is any good for my scope?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-32mm-ed-eyepiece.html

[banjaxed]

4 minutes ago, Mark68 said:

Thanks. 

This one is still affordable. Would you know if 3.2 is any good for my scope?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-32mm-ed-eyepiece.html

From my own experience I found the 3.2mm too powerful for planets as it is difficult to track at that magnification. My personal choice is 8 or 12 mm.

[Mark68]

34 minutes ago, banjaxed said:

From my own experience I found the 3.2mm too powerful for planets as it is difficult to track at that magnification. My personal choice is 8 or 12 mm.

Ive got the 10 that it came with and even with a Barlow I can't see anything. Jupiter ISS just like a star, but I can see it's moons. That's why I'm looking for better magnification. 

Don't know if that is just because the eye piece is not all that or the magnification isn't enough. 

[sputniksteve]

The stock Sky-watcher 10mm eyepiece is poor. 

I imagine a 3.2mm probably wouldn't serve your scope too well, and I wonder if something like a 7 or 8mm might be better. Someone cleverer than I will be able to point you to the calcliations needed to reveal highest practical power for your scope. 

[Neil H]

Hi if you can go a bit more the celestron  zoom will give you 4 eyepieces in one they do come up second hand only go for the 8 to 24mm the 7 to 21 is rubbish

Edited September 26, 2020 by Neil H

[Neil H]

https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi3qKqQl4fsAhUP6e0KHQgRDwsYABARGgJkZw&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAASEuRovi30jKcV4CzL-jtzyYUCqA&sig=AOD64_0Zy28EbiOhrG1ZgZpI4L6hr3ybug&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjml6SQl4fsAhWRgVwKHXUMAGQQwg96BAgLEA8&adurl=

[MrFreeze]

The Heritage 100 is a 100mm, F4 scope so max magnification should be 200X. The 3.2mm Starguider should give 125X which  should be OK, but I understood Starguiders don't play nicely with fast scopes.

David

[MrFreeze]

That Celestron zoom is from China, you may get charged VAT/duty on it, although Svbony are normally pretty good at underdeclaring vales on customs documentation, and they do ship quickly.  If you are prepared to buy from China, I bought mine for a much better price from TianyuanStar at https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32221818203.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.a0ec20cb08FO7K&algo_pvid=445bf72e-eae2-43f2-9588-5143591fb1c9&algo_expid=445bf72e-eae2-43f2-9588-5143591fb1c9-2&btsid=0b0a050b16011360156892542eb2f7&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_ .

It's a nice eyepiece, but a bit sensitive to eye positioning. The 7-21mm Hyperflex zoom from FLO is nicer, but then it is a little more expensive.

David

[Pixies]

An 8mm BST Starguider is one of the better ones in the range. It'll provide 50x magnification, so good for a lot of deep sky objects. You could barlow it, making it 100x in effectively then an f/8 scope - so will behave nicely.

[MrFreeze]

Nice idea, but unfortunately the stock Skywatcher barlow is pants, and the cost of a decent barlow makes this an expensive option. I suspect the original suggestion wasn't a bad idea if you don't want to go to the expense of a zoom - at least you get a better FOV than a plossl or ortho.

David

[banjaxed]

1 hour ago, Mark68 said:

Ive got the 10 that it came with and even with a Barlow I can't see anything. Jupiter ISS just like a star, but I can see it's moons. That's why I'm looking for better magnification. 

Don't know if that is just because the eye piece is not all that or the magnification isn't enough. 

The supplied 10mm eyepiece is not very good so a better make of 6, 8 or 10 mm eyepiece will give much better views. In my 8” Dob Jupiter is the size of a pea and the smaller it is the clearer the image.

Edited September 26, 2020 by banjaxed

[Mark68]

1 hour ago, banjaxed said:

The supplied 10mm eyepiece is not very good so a better make of 6, 8 or 10 mm eyepiece will give much better views. In my 8” Dob Jupiter is the size of a pea and the smaller it is the clearer the image.

I don't mind it being small. In fact I expect it with my scope. It would be nice to make out some markings. At the moment all I can see is a white dot with the moon's round the outside. 

[Mark68]

1 hour ago, MrFreeze said:

Nice idea, but unfortunately the stock Skywatcher barlow is pants, and the cost of a decent barlow makes this an expensive option. I suspect the original suggestion wasn't a bad idea if you don't want to go to the expense of a zoom - at least you get a better FOV than a plossl or ortho.

David

So you are suggesting go for the BST?

[Neil H]

I use the celestron zoom on my 200/1200 orion optics VX8L and on my bresser 127 /1200 refractor i do get detail on Jupiter before i get to the high setting of the zoom eyepiece the zoom works well the 7 to 21 in celestron does not focus well this is why people buy the 8 to 24 FOV is good but image will darken as you hit high zoom but it not so bad you cant use max zoom 

If you get the zoom as you find what mag works best for seeing you can buy single eyepieces in that size as they come up secondhand 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Neil H

[MrFreeze]

Just been looking up prices, and you can get the TMB planetary eyepieces (the Skywatcher UWA you were quoting is a variant of this)  on eBay for £25-£30 from China, slightly cheaper on Aliexpress. They get some good reviews on this forum if you search for "planetary eyepiece".

They were designed by Burgess Optical, who (if I remember this right) contracted a chinese manufacturer to make them, but fouled up the contractural arrangements, which allowed the chinese to make them independently (which of course they did and still do). I'm tempted myself to try one (don't tell my wife🤐)

David

[Ricochet]

I've looked through Starguiders in the slightly larger 114mm f4.4 and found that the 3.2 Starguider is quite difficult to focus and tends to give quite soft images as a result. Barlowing the 5 and 8mm Starguiders gives much better results and would be my recommendation on a budget. The barlow sold by FLO as astro essentials is actually pretty good and can also be found on eBay for under £10 direct from china. 

I've not used the "planetary" eyepieces but they tend to get decent reviews and I expect that they would perform quite well in terms of correction at least as they feature a negative lens group in the nose which effectively slows the focal ratio before it gets to the positive lens group (like the starguiders). 

I've looked through a generic 8-24mm zoom and perhaps it was a dud one, but I thought it was absolutely awful. 

[Louis D]

The OP might want to try the new Svbony 8-24mm SV171 zoom available on ebay, amazon, aliexpress, and Svbony's website.  It's been getting quite a bit of good chatter by early adopters on Cloudy Nights.