Final check of gear before purchase

[Merlin66]

Based on 40 years experience with various telescopes from a 60mm refractor to an 18" f4.5 reflector....

I've bought and used MANY eyepieces over the years, the "Sets" look sexy and nice in the case.... and that's where the majority of them will stay....in the case!

I only really use three eyepieces Low/ Medium and High magnification. That's it!

I ended up with TV plossls, because they were better than the UO orthoscopics I had at the time, they've now been with me for almost 20 years.

As you gain more and more experience with the telescope and your eye gets better trained in how to look at objects you'll begin to understand the differences in eyepieces; may take a few months or a few years, then is the time to look for a replacement ( not an additional!) eyepiece. There will always be a "flavour of the month", used to be Orthoscopics "Can't be beat!", then the Plossl's " good eye relief and crisper fields", then came the Naglers " WoooW" then the Wide Angle, goodness knows what's coming next!

If you talk to any serious planetary observer he/ she would probably say - a monocentric or an ortho is the ONLY way to go!

Just my 2 1/2 cents.

[Astro_Baby]

I'd kind of agree with Merlin but theres also a view which is a cheap EP set may at least give you a steer with stuff like filters and better quality EPs than come witt the scope.

Also a range of medium quality EPs do give the tyro a chance to see what different EPs provide. A lot of beginners assume what they want is the maximum power. As we know thats unlikely to be what most of us end up using.

I quite liked my Celestron EP kit, it was cheap enough and it was resold on for not much less than I paid for it. It gave a useful stepping stone to decide where I'd spend the cash later on.

On hindsight I could have moved directly to Hyperions but if I had been offered Hyperions at the outset I'd probably have bought the wrong sizes.

Its horses for courses and of course many of us dont have plentiful opportunities to assess other eyepiece options. But to prvent any truly disastrous purchase I really suggest get some eye time in.

The supplied EPs with SkyWatcher always come in for some stick and truth be told they arent great EPs but they are perfectly adequate to start with.

[tooth_dr]

I bought a full set of the Meade 4000 EPs when I started out, but I was fortunate enough to find them all second hand, individually, over a few months. Do I use them all now? No - I use a low power 26mm for wide, and 6.4mm for close up. I also had noone to help or advise me when I started, but you will soon get the hang of things, and the forums are very useful. Buy the minimum, then add to it at a later date. Too much stuff at the start and there will deffo be stuff you never get a chance to use/evaluate fully.