Eyepieces advice

[Oakbeard]

Skip the preface if you are not in the mood for nostalgia

I got my Heritage 130p back in January and I must say it has been a blast. I did not get anything more with it other than a cheap barlow. I have not been out as much as I would like but the times I did it was a simple matter of picking it up and go. I only recently got a car so most of my expeditions have been on bike or simply walking outside to the public park. This means that most of my observing has been of planets or the moon but what a treat it has been. I don't think I will ever forget how I managed to actually see the rings in Saturn with this tiny telescope, on what must be a not so good 10mm and a barlow not fitted all the way in on the focuser so that it would come to focus. That particular night I also managed to find and observe M45, it was just the faintest thing but beautiful none the less. That being said my binos also provided great fun and it was with them that I had the best view of the neowise comet, I was just at home, it was 1am and I had found about it online, jumped out of my pajamas and rode my bike to the park, by sheer luck I looked on the right spot and there it was, a beautiful blue trail. Or how could one forget the Orionids comets in October, just laying down in the fields and feeling wonder. 

Well no matter what time I come around there always seems to be something of a lifetime going on in the sky. This brings us to December and the approximation of Saturn and Jupiter.

Since I have not acquired any eyepieces so far and I would like to keep it budget friendly my plan was to get a bst 5mm or 3.2 and a 8mm. Would 5mm be suitable for this event? Im open to all recommendations ⭐

Edited December 6, 2020 by Oakbeard

[Ricochet]

In my experience the 3.2mm is a little soft. My advice would be to get the 5/8/12mm options from the Starguider range for your telescope and then use them with a barlow when you need higher powers. The other option would be to get the 7-21mm Hyperflex zoom, which gets good reviews, at least when used with a barlow, but I've not used one myself to know how it will perform at f5.

[Oakbeard]

The Hyperflex seems like a bit of kit that wasn't around last time I looked at zooms, cool tip 👍 I was hoping to actually do away with the barlow. Mine I think is not particularly user friendly and its one more thing to get in the way of observing.

[Geoff Lister]

I normally start my Heritage 130p sessions with my 32mm Plossl. This gives a wide, low magnification, view; and then I transfer to my Celestron 8-24mm zoom to find the best magnification/object clarity compromise, particularly on the planets.

Geoff

[Ricochet]

9 minutes ago, Oakbeard said:

The Hyperflex seems like a bit of kit that wasn't around last time I looked at zooms, cool tip 👍 I was hoping to actually do away with the barlow. Mine I think is not particularly user friendly and its one more thing to get in the way of observing.

Which barlow do you have? I have found that it is best to use barlows only to achieve high magnification viewing, rather than trying to add intermediate focal lengths between eyepieces. That way when you are using the barlow you put it in the focuser once and just change eyepieces, rather than continually swapping both the barlow and eyepieces.

[Oakbeard]

Since I was only getting my feet wet I went with something cheap, https://www.celestron.co.uk/shop/celestron-1-25-univeral-barlow-and-t-adaptor/ I think that my main issue with it has been that with the 10mm I have I couldn't achieve focus if the barlow was all the way in the focuser. That made for some frustrating fiddling. 

[Oakbeard]

10 minutes ago, Geoff Lister said:

I normally start my Heritage 130p sessions with my 32mm Plossl. This gives a wide, low magnification, view; and then I transfer to my Celestron 8-24mm zoom to find the best magnification/object clarity compromise, particularly on the planets.

Geoff

Another "vote" for zoom I think  I was enamored with the baader zoom + barlow for quite a long time but was a bit scared of the combined weight.

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by Oakbeard

[Zermelo]

31 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

In my experience the 3.2mm is a little soft. My advice would be to get the 5/8/12mm options from the Starguider range for your telescope and then use them with a barlow when you need higher powers. The other option would be to get the 7-21mm Hyperflex zoom, which gets good reviews, at least when used with a barlow, but I've not used one myself to know how it will perform at f5.

Agreed. The 3.2mm gives you just over 200x with your Heritage, which you'll not get to use very often (if you're in the UK, at least). It certainly wouldn't be usable with a barlow. The 8mm will give you a nice 80x, which you can then barlow to 160x, or a little more with a 2.25x, when conditions permit.

The zoom option is very versatile and certainly worth considering. The Hyperflex zoom performs well in my F/5 Skywatcher, and it barlows well with the Baader classic Q (and both currently in stock at FLO). That combination would get you up to the same magnification as the solo 3.2mm, when you can get away with it. The field of view will be narrower than for most fixed eyepieces, especially at the wide end, so you'll probably stick with your stock eyepiece as an initial target finder.

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

I have used my Heritage 130P for a number of years and have made many modifications to it. I use the Heritage as my quick grab and go and mainly use my TeleVue 8-24 zoom (no longer available).

I totally agree with what has been said about buying a zoom. I often add the Baader Classic 2.25x barlow to view double stars to get extra magification.

So as everyone has stated the Hyperflex 7-21 zoom is what I would purchase. In fact there is one in the offers area of FLO asking £60 (bargain).

[Oakbeard]

Thank you all for the input, I really like the idea of this zoom + baader barlow, very budget friendly and perfect for my current situation. Two more questions, are there any filters worth getting? and what are the tubes for keeping eyepieces called, I cant seem to find them at FLO?

Edited December 6, 2020 by Oakbeard

[Zermelo]

1 minute ago, Oakbeard said:

Thank you all for the input, I really like the idea of this zoom + baader barlow, very budget friendly and perfect for my current situation. One more question, are there any filters worth getting?

A variable moon filter (polarizing type) is worth getting at the outset. I'd wait a bit before deciding on either an OIII or UHC for nebulae (advice in other threads) and I remain sceptical about sets of coloured filters.

[Mark at Beaufort]

I have many filters but for this scope I would get a UHC filter. Something like this - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/uhc-oiii-visual-filters/explore-scientific-uhc-nebula-filter-1-25-2-inch.html

You can spend a great deal of filters but this filter from Explore Scienific seems a good starting point.

[Oakbeard]

Well, the deed is done. I hope that the next upgrade will be the scope itself but I also hope it will be much later. Thank you fellow stargazers

[Ricochet]

1 hour ago, Oakbeard said:

Since I was only getting my feet wet I went with something cheap, https://www.celestron.co.uk/shop/celestron-1-25-univeral-barlow-and-t-adaptor/ I think that my main issue with it has been that with the 10mm I have I couldn't achieve focus if the barlow was all the way in the focuser. That made for some frustrating fiddling. 

I've got one of those and use the nosepiece with my binoviewers (not with Celestron branding, but they must all come out of the same factory), it's actually optically quite good. It would be worth trying it with the zoom to see how it works (if you haven't ordered another barlow). The problem could easily be the supplied 10mm eyepiece.

40 minutes ago, Oakbeard said:

Thank you all for the input, I really like the idea of this zoom + baader barlow, very budget friendly and perfect for my current situation. Two more questions, are there any filters worth getting? and what are the tubes for keeping eyepieces called, I cant seem to find them at FLO?

The filters worth getting are UHC and OIII for nebulae (Astronomik or Televue ones), and a Neodymium filter for lunar and planetary (the Baader is the best, but the cheap Chinese one is also good).

The tubes for keeping eyepieces in are usually called bolt cases. They're a bit fiddly if you have loads of eyepieces so most of us tend to keep out (ever expanding) eyepieces in a foam filled eyepiece case, typically a relatively cheap flight case. There is a very long running thread you may want to have a look at:

 

 

[Oakbeard]

I could not find the name for them but I recalled having seen some cheap flight cases and ended up ordering this one, should anyone want a relatively cheap one: https://www.monoprice.eu/products/pure-outdoor-by-monoprice-weatherproof-hard-case-with-customizable-foam-8-x-7-x-6-in?_pos=13&_sid=5f0c5bbea&_ss=r maybe its too deep but I think it will work just fine.

Regarding the barlow, I did get the baader one mostly because deciding later would just not be worth it when shipping costs are factored in. I wont be throwing the other one out just yet

Thank you for the link regarding storage.

[Ricochet]

3 minutes ago, Oakbeard said:

I could not find the name for them but I recalled having seen some cheap flight cases and ended up ordering this one, should anyone want a relatively cheap one: https://www.monoprice.eu/products/pure-outdoor-by-monoprice-weatherproof-hard-case-with-customizable-foam-8-x-7-x-6-in?_pos=13&_sid=5f0c5bbea&_ss=r maybe its too deep but I think it will work just fine.

The extra depth will allow you to store eyepieces vertically, so you can get more in than if you were to lay them on their side, so it is actually quite a good idea.

[Oakbeard]

I thought about that but since everyone seems to lay them down I'm wondering if I would be exposing them to worse "bumps". A case is always useful and monoprice have slimmer ones, shipping was free so I would probably order another one if I find this one not up to the task. Appreciate the thought

[wulfrun]

46 minutes ago, Oakbeard said:

Well, the deed is done. I hope that the next upgrade will be the scope itself but I also hope it will be much later. Thank you fellow stargazers

I don't think you'll be disappointed. I have the same combination (different scope) and it works quite well. Without the barlow you'll get x90 and with it you're just over x200, probably not often usable but nice to have.

[Tiny Clanger]

27 minutes ago, Oakbeard said:

I thought about that but since everyone seems to lay them down I'm wondering if I would be exposing them to worse "bumps". A case is always useful and monoprice have slimmer ones, shipping was free so I would probably order another one if I find this one not up to the task. Appreciate the thought

I noticed that 'laying down' orientation too, but for years I've had expensive Nikon camera lenses stored vertically in deep alu. cases , and never had a problem despite them being bigger and more delicate ( many more moving parts) than telescope eyepieces. As long as the case is deep enough to still have some padding top and bottom, vertical storage seems fine to me. I've a small but deep peli lookalike case for my eyepieces, and store them vertically, I used a bit of metal tube of the correct diameter sharpened one end with a file, and used it to cut neat cylindrical holes to take the EP lower barrels,  the lower cap stays put in the base of the foam when I pull an EP out too, so I don't need to faff with those .

I could of course be wrong (or labouring under a common misconception) but I guessed the 'lay the EP down' orientation was probably popular because folk with a lot of EPs find it an easier way to distinguish between them in use , plus some of the huge EPs would need a very deep box to stand upright . Having just 5 cheapies to my name , two of which are of a distinctively different design , I don't have that problem .

Yet.

Heather