Best eyepieces and filters for a skywatcher heritage 150p (for deepspace)

[Tijl Verheyen]

Hi everyone 

I just bought my very first telescope the skywatcher heritage 150p. But I still need some extra eyepieces and filters for deepspace observation.

What do you guys recommend?

[Orange Smartie]

I use BST Starguider eyepieces on mine and I am happy with them. 

[Tiny Clanger]

Welcome,

I use the BST starguiders too, but find I actually go first to my 32mm skywatcher plossl in preference to the 26mm BST which (with its 60 degree FOV) gives a similar view.

Then , once I'm looking in the correct area, my most used BST for faint fuzzy stuff is the 15mm , which in my suburban, light polluted skies seems to give the best contrast of fuzzy DSO vs. washed out sky.

Heather

[KP82]

Another vote for the BST. Alternatively you could pick up an 8-24mm zoom.

As for the filters the only ones I'd recommend (also used by myself) are variable polarising filter (for the moon) and UHC (for certain types of DSOs in light polluted area).

[Tijl Verheyen]

Thank you all for replying!

[Zermelo]

You can find some further opinions in this thread.

[Orange Smartie]

On the subject of filters, I have a moon filter, but not the variable polarising type. In retrospect,  I wish I had bought a variable one, as the amount of light you wish to filter out will vary with eyepiece and I guess, also to the state of the moon.

[Second Time Around]

Hi Tijl and welcome to the forum!

What's your budget as this will make a big difference to the recommendations.

[Tijl Verheyen]

12 hours ago, Second Time Around said:

Hi Tijl and welcome to the forum!

What's your budget as this will make a big difference to the recommendations.

My budget for extra eyepieces and filters is something around 150 euro

[Kon]

20 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Then , once I'm looking in the correct area, my most used BST for faint fuzzy stuff is the 15mm , which in my suburban, light polluted skies seems to give the best contrast of fuzzy DSO vs. washed out sky.

Heather

What Heather said.  I use a 200P SW Dob and my most used EP for DSOs is the 15mm BST and I am at dark skies; the 8mm EP BST is a good option to replace the 10mm that came with the telescope since it is pretty poor.  I find that the standard 25mm that came with my telescope is not a bad EP so do not hurry to upgrade that one; it gets used quite a bit with DSOs. I would hold on filters for now and see how you get along, it also depends on your skies; I ended up with a TV OIII filter after suggestions from SGL members and it makes a huge difference for some nebulas but that was £100. A RACI/Telrad would be better with your Dob.

[Stu]

59 minutes ago, Kon said:

A RACI/Telrad would be better with your Dob.

Neither will easily fit on the Heritage 150p. You could fit the Telrad to the main lower OTA but it would be awkward to view through. A RACI would need a suitable show adding to the same part.

[Orange Smartie]

I've found the included red dot finder quite useable.  The field of view at low power is so large (2 degrees with my BST 25mm) that I don't need to be particularly accurate with my initial "find". 

[Second Time Around]

I bought a similar f/5 reflector for a friend's daughter for Xmas, and so these suggestions are based on that experience.  

The eyepieces that come with these scopes are very basic starter ones, and can be improved at low cost.

I'd very much recommend a zoom eyepiece as your workhorse.  One zoom eyepiece will cover multiple focal lengths and so is really excellent value for money.  I bought the Svbony 7-21mm zoom (about £45) for my friend's daughter as that fitted her budget, that is similar to your own.

Despite having high quality fixed focal length eyepieces, I use my zooms a lot more often.  The zoom plus a Barlow lens and a low power, wide field eyepiece is often all I use the whole evening.  

Fixed focal length eyepieces may be slightly better corrected when compared with a zoom at the same magnification.   But that's not always a fair comparison as that magnification may not be the optimum for a given object.  This is because one of the many advantages of a zoom is to be able to dial in precisely the best focal length.  For instance, this may be 13mm or even 13.1mm, which may actually show more detail than shorter or longer fixed focal length eyepieces - even better quality ones.  

I particularly like the ability to increase the magnification to make use of brief moments of good seeing (a steady atmosphere).  It takes more time to swap out an eyepiece, and the opportunity may then be missed.  You can't see anything if you haven't got an eyepiece in the focusser!

Zooms also enable the field of view to be varied to frame an object to get the prettiest view.  For this reason I particularly like them for clusters.

They're also handy when you're using filters.  You don't have to unscrew and then replace the filter when you change magnifications.

Many of those who post here and advocate fixed focal lengths are experienced observers.  It's so easy to forget what it was like as a beginner!  A zoom eyepiece enables beginners to easily learn what difference a change of magnification makes on all the various classes of object.  It also shows them what focal lengths would be most useful to their eyes, their telescope, and their observing conditions.  They then have the option of buying/not buying the most appropriate fixed focal length eyepieces for them.  For these reasons I'd always recommend that beginners buy a zoom as their first eyepiece.

The downside of a zooms is their smaller field of view (FOV), so you'll still have use for a low power, wide FOV eyepiece to supplement it.   To begin with your 25mm eyepiece can fulfil this role - I expect you've already found it's better than your 10mm. 

The maximum FOV of your scope is about 2.25 degrees (about 4.5x the diameter of the full moon) - it's determined by the 1.25 inch diameter of your focuser and the 750mm focal length.  This will be enough to show even all of the Pleiades cluster (M45) and leave space around to frame it nicely.

There are various spec eyepieces that will get this maximum FOV.  I'd suggest a 32mm Plossl eyepiece, cost £29 from forum sponsors First Light Optics.  Go to https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials-eyepieces/astro-essentials-super-plossl-eyepiece.html

I'd supplement the zoom with a Barlow lens.  Just in case you're not aware, a Barlow lens multiplies the magnification of any eyepiece it's used with.  It goes in the focuser before the eyepiece.  The multiplication factor varies but 2x is most common.  Some of these 2x Barlows can also be used at 1.5x, although it's not always mentioned in the blurb, and it's one of these I'd recommend.  These dual 1.5x/2x Barlows allow the black lens cell to be unscrewed from the body of the Barlow and then screwed into the filter thread at the bottom of an eyepiece to give approx 1.5x.   First Light Optics do one in their Astro Essentials range that even has a standard T thread at the top for attaching a camera.  It's just £25.  Go to https://www.firstlightoptics.com/barlows/astro-essentials-125-2x-barlow-with-t-thread.html

The exact amplification varies from eyepiece to eyepiece depending on where the field stop is located.  At 2x amplification with a 7-21mm zoom this will give you magnifications of approx 71-214x.  We don't know where you live, but many nights in the latitude of the UK the seeing (atmospheric turbulence) won't be good enough to go as high as 214x with your scope and you'd get more use from the approx 54-161x that 1.5x amplification will give you.  Additionally, at a given magnification the field of view will be bigger with 1.5x amplification.  This is because the vast majority of zooms have a wider field of view at the high power end.

So the Svbony 7-21mm zoom, a 32mm Plossl and a 1.5x/2x Barlow lens will cost you about £100, and could be all you need in eyepieces for quite a long time.

This will leave you a little over for filters but these could be left for the moment.  Instead I suggest you buy the highly regarded book "Turn Left at Orion".  This has a wealth of information about what to look at in the sky with small scopes, including how to find them.  First Light Optics sell it for £23.  Go to https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/turn-left-at-orion-book.html

Finally, if you haven't already bought one, you'll need an inexpensive collimation tool to keep your optics aligned.  I've said enough already (some would say too much!), so I'll leave this to others.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Second Time Around

[200pman]

Bst are great value for money.

Unless you can justify spending more 

Your chioce .we all see things differently.

 

[Orange Smartie]

+1 for Turn Left at Orion.  It's a great book to help you get started.

Edited to say that my 150p came with a collimation cap. Admittedly not a very precision instrument, but enough to get basic collimation sorted. 

Edited April 22, 2021 by Orange Smartie

[wulfrun]

35 minutes ago, Second Time Around said:

These dual 1.5x/2x Barlows allow the black lens cell to be unscrewed from the body of the Barlow and then screwed into the filter thread at the bottom of an eyepiece to give approx 1.5x.   First Light Optics do one in their Astro Essentials range that even has a standard T thread at the top for attaching a camera.  It's just £25.  Go to https://www.firstlightoptics.com/barlows/astro-essentials-125-2x-barlow-with-t-thread.html

I feel it's worth pointing out that there are some incompatabilites here, depending on which zoom/Barlow you pick. I have the Baader Q-Turret (x2.25) barlow, with removeable barlow lens group. However, the lens group needs a recess to screw into and this space is occupied by the moving elements of the Hyperflex 7.2-21.5 and SVbony 7-21 zooms so it cannot be used this way. Just felt it needed to be pointed out that not all zoom/Barlow elements combination are possible, it needs to be checked. The Astro Essentials Barlow you mention does look as though it will work, however.

Oddly, you can remove the negative elements from an ES 2x focal extender and they will fit in the above zooms, although I have no idea if the optical train makes sense that way.

Edited April 22, 2021 by wulfrun

[Tiny Clanger]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Neither will easily fit on the Heritage 150p. You could fit the Telrad to the main lower OTA but it would be awkward to view through. A RACI would need a suitable show adding to the same part.

Yep, the practicalities of putting extra/different finders on the hritage 150 might not be obvious unless you've used one ...

The RDF is mounted on a little block on the very front sliding part which has the spider/secondary/focus tube on it. You could not simply swap the stock RDF for any other finder, and I'd be very wary of adding extra weight of. say, a 9x50 RACI there anyway, it could conceivably pull the alignment of the front section out of line.

I added a RACI (right angled corrected image optical finder)  to the solid tube on the lower half , trying out positions for the shoe by fixing it with 'no more nails' permanent fixing pads, which were pretty strong, supported a 6x30 RACI well, but posed np problems peeling them off again with no paintwork damage. A coupoe of months ago I finally summoned up the courage to drill holes in my lovely little dob, and fix the shoe on properly, and to celebrate actually getting the right sized holes in the right places (not my forte ...) I bought a 9x50 for the dob so the 6x30 can stay on my mak.

The raci is half way down the 'scope, when the tube is extended, which means a bit of to-ing and fro-ing,  eyepiece to RACI and back, but if I didn't find it worthwhile by experimenting with the sticky pads , I'd not have gone through the drilling trauma.  

I had a similar plan to swap my rigel quickfinder from mak to dob, it came with two bases , so why not use them ... but while looking through the raci from the side is OK, mounting the rigel on the lower tube half (there is no surface suitable on the front ) and getting behind it to look would be a total pain. So I just use the original RDF in combination with the RACI. A telrad would suffer the same problem,

[Tiny Clanger]

A quick photo of my heritage with RACI in place, taken after I drilled the tube (I've cut the grass since then, honest)  . The bright white thing forward of the raci is just light shining off the locking mechanism, and the wobbly looking thing on the central bolt of the base is the magnet I used to use to balance the tube when using a mixture of BSTs and other smaller EPs. You can just see the original RDF hiding behind the focus tube.

 

[Second Time Around]

2 hours ago, wulfrun said:

I feel it's worth pointing out that there are some incompatabilites here, depending on which zoom/Barlow you pick. I have the Baader Q-Turret (x2.25) barlow, with removeable barlow lens group. However, the lens group needs a recess to screw into and this space is occupied by the moving elements of the Hyperflex 7.2-21.5 and SVbony 7-21 zooms so it cannot be used this way. Just felt it needed to be pointed out that not all zoom/Barlow elements combination are possible, it needs to be checked. The Astro Essentials Barlow you mention does look as though it will work, however.

Oddly, you can remove the negative elements from an ES 2x focal extender and they will fit in the above zooms, although I have no idea if the optical train makes sense that way.

That's a good point.  To be used at 1.3x the Q Barlow cell fits most eyepieces but not all, especially some zooms.  I no longer have mine, but if I recall it needs about 15mm of space at the bottom of the barrel of the eyepiece, plus enough of the barrel has to be threaded.  There should be no problem with any eyepiece though when used at 2.25x.

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I had a similar plan to swap my rigel quickfinder from mak to dob, it came with two bases , so why not use them ... but while looking through the raci from the side is OK, mounting the rigel on the lower tube half (there is no surface suitable on the front ) and getting behind it to look would be a total pain. So I just use the original RDF in combination with the RACI. A telrad would suffer the same problem,

Perhaps you could 3D print an adapter for the current RDF clamp that would hold the Rigel QuikFinder.