Advice needed on eyepieces etc

[Broadymike]

Hi all

I'm still very new to the astronomy game. A couple of months ago was given a very basic 70mm refractor which has been quite good fun and good enough to get me started. Looked on fb marketplace today and low and behold I'm now the owner of a celestron 114eq. Basically brand new in the box for £35. Only been out of the box twice. 

 

I have read that the eyepieces supplied are terrible quality but with upgraded eyepieces the optics are at least passable. I already have some cheap but surprisingly OK plossls. 25mm, 10mm and 6mm and a 2x barlow. What I'm looking for is any advice on any extra eyepieces that will increase my range. For example are the zoom eyepieces worth looking at? Is getting say a 32mm with a wide FOV worth it for observing andromeda and similar faint fuzzies? Also any recommendations in general are much appreciated. 

 

One thing I do know is that the eq mount that comes with the telescope is not really up to the job of supporting the longer 900mm tube. My plan for that is eventually make a dobsonian mount for it and in the meantime will knock up a really nice sturdy tripod from timber,  rather than the lightweight aluminium affair supplied. I'm a carpenter by trade so nice and simple to do. 

 

Hope I haven't bored anyone to death. Thanks in advance for any replies. Hoping for a nice summer of clear skies. 

 

Mike

[Cosmic Geoff]

You might find a 32mm eyepiece useful.  Whether you get a zoom is up to you.  I have a budget one and while it is quite good optically, the field of view at 24mm fl is very small (never used) and the action is so stiff I cannot adjust it while it is in the scope.

I have a permanently sited wooden tripod for some of my scopes.

[Alexis]

Quote

25mm, 10mm and 6mm and a 2x barlow. 

That's already a pretty good rage, to be honest. I'd be looking at a wider eyepiece to max out the field in 1.25" -- which one would depend on which Celestron 114eq this is. If this is a 114/900, a 32mm Plössl, but on a faster scope (e.g. a 114/500 or 114/450) I'd prefer a 22-24mm 68° eyepiece (if you can spring for one).

Otherwise, I'd tend to replace the eyepieces you use often but find uncomfortable with flavours with a bit more field and eye relief (I find 6mm Plössls a bit harrowing; only my Pentax XP with less than one mm of eye relief is more challenging). 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Alexis

[Broadymike]

Thanks for your replies guys. Pretty much confirmed what I  was thinking.  I knew that I had a fairly good range with the eyepieces o already have.  It's a 114/900 OTA so I'll look into getting a 32mm plossl to max out the FOV.  

 

Totally agree with the eye relief on the 6mm plossl I have. It's is just about at the limit of practical use. That may well be another that I will replace fairly soon too.

 

Unfortunately I don't live somewhere that I can have my tripod set up permanently. If I did I'd probably go the whole hog and put it a post for the mount. But I can guarantee that I can make a decent tripod with far less wobble than the supplied one. 

[Nyctimene]

+1 for the 32 mmf Plössl. No other eyepieces needed atm., perhaps an UHC filter.

I'd focus on building a decent Dob mount - I guess, even with a decent wooden tripod, the EQ 2 mount would still keep some wobblyness; and, as an equatorial mount, is awkward to use together with a Newtonian OTA (eyepiece position changes etc.). There are lots of DIY instructions in the Internet; e.g this one, that looks quite useful to me (no own DIY experiences, btw.):

https://www.instructables.com/BUILDING-a-DOBSONIAN-TELESCOPE-MOUNT/

Enjoy the journey, and keep asking (and posting)!

Stephan

Edited June 3, 2021 by Nyctimene

[Broadymike]

 

 

32 minutes ago, Nyctimene said:

+1 for the 32 mmf Plössl. No other eyepieces needed atm., perhaps an UHC filter.

I'd focus on building a decent Dob mount - I guess, even with a decent wooden tripod, the EQ 2 mount would still keep some wobblyness; and, as an equatorial mount, is awkward to use together with a Newtonian OTA (eyepiece position changes etc.). There are lots of DIY instructions in the Internet; e.g this one, that looks quite useful to me (no own DIY experiences, btw.):

https://www.instructables.com/BUILDING-a-DOBSONIAN-TELESCOPE-MOUNT/

Enjoy the journey, and keep asking (and posting)!

Stephan

The tripod idea is because to get decent dark skies I have to travel so would be far more easy than a dobson. Although dobson would be nice for when I am in the garden fighting with the light pollution. Certainly for now I'm not worried about super steady mounts for astrophotography. I'm purely just using the scope for observations, so a little wait for things to settle is an inconvenience that I can live with.  

 

To be fair this certainly wouldn't have been the scope I would have chosen if I was buying new. Ideally more aperture and a more stable mount would have been great. Was looking at skywatcher 130p type thing. When I found this for only £35 though, I thought I couldn't really go wrong. Worst case scenario I should be able to get my money back, possibly a decent 2nd scope for the future.

I've also had an idea which would mean that I would want at least 3 or 4 scopes in the future.  I go to a Lot of folk festivals around the country. Once I've got a bit more experience under my belt doing some stargazing workshops. It's something that I think folkies would be interested in, plus can use it to promote dark skies. Oh and would get me a free ticket to the festival. On a selfish note there are a few festivals that would be perfect as they are basically in proper dark sky areas so would get a bonus plus all the campsites are generally in dark fields so would never be too bad. 

[Spile]

The default 25mm that came with my Skywatcher 200P is quite passible but I thought the 10mm was dreadful. I decided on a Zoom and a low power wide angle EP because it was right for my situation but fixed eyepieces work for others. There are plenty of threads on eyepieces on here so I'd take a look at what people are happy with and find something that suits your budget. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Spile

[Broadymike]

4 minutes ago, Spile said:

The default 25mm that came with my Skywatcher 200P is quite passible but I thought the 10mm was dreadful. I decided on a Zoom and a low power wide angle EP because it was right for my situation but fixed eyepieces work for others. There are plenty of threads on eyepieces on here so I'd take a look at what people are happy with and find something that suits your budget. 

I've had a good look around and I think that for now just getting a 32mm is the way to go. Bearing in mind that with the supplied eyepieces with the scope I now have, 25mm, 20mm, 10mm, 6mm and a useless 4mm. Add to that the decent 2x barlow and a 3x barlow that's a cheap plastic affair that came with the scope, so I don't hold much hope for it being any good. I don't think I really need to worry about a zoom lens as I probably won't need to use all the eyepieces I have now. 

 

I'm still new to the hobby but have still managed to keep the costs right down. Got given a 70mm reflector a few weeks ago. Bought some eyepieces from fb marketplace for £20 a couple of weeks ago. Which I might add greatly improved the quality of the views I am seeing. Then yesterday on fb marketplace found the 114eq which I still can't believe they only wanted £35 for lol. So all told has cost me £55 so far and I'm completely hooked.