Another eyepiece question

[Steve1976]

Any advice on which low power eyepiece is best to buy for

the Skymax 127? (my current lowest is 25 mm giving x60 and I only have the red-dot finder)

Also would wide angle ep's make much improvement to the narrow FOV of this scope?

Thanks in advance

[John]

With the Skymax scopes you need to stick with 1.25" eyepieces I believe. A 32mm plossl will give you a 52 degree apparent field of view which is the widest possible in the 1.25" fitting. That would give you x47 and a true field (the amount of sky you can see) of around 1.1 degrees which is about the best you can hope for in a slow scope like the maksutov.

PS: a 40mm plossl won't show any more sky because of the barrel limitation I mentioned above. 40mm 1.25 eyepieces have narrower AFoV's than 32mm's which, IMHO, are not as nice to view through.

[Steve1976]

Thanks a lot mate.

Had a quick browse on the internet and I found a 30 mm Deep Sky plossl (series 500) EP which gives a FOV of only 45 degrees. I also found a Vixen Plossl 32 mm which gives the FOV you mentioned. Can the latter be used on my scope? Sorry if that's a stupid question!

[part timer]

Your telescope will accept any standard 1.25"/31.7mm fitting eyepiece.

All you have to be careful of is to not order any 2"/50mm eyepiece.

To get the widest field possible you could get either a 32mm Plossl, a 40mm plossl (which will not show any more sky than the 32 as mentioned above) or something like a 24mm Hyperion which will show the same sky at still higher magnification.

My choice would be a good quality 32mm Plossl such as the Televue one. With my skymax I found the Hyperion's were a bit big and clumsy and heavy.

Very good plossl cost a bit more than the others but they save you a lot of money in the end. I have spent a fortune trying out cheaper wide fields and plossls and orthoscopic's and a few other designs to boot.

For a 1.25" inch scope like yours I think good plossls give the best performance in the lower powers.

My main recommendation though is to loose the dreadful finder and buy a proper 50mm optical finder scope. When I did this it transformed my skymax into a nice deep sky telescope. They can be a bit tricky to look through at certain angles but to find faint objects I've never seen any thing more usefull. The skywatcer ones are quite good, not too dear and will fit your telescope without any modification.

Hope this is some help

[Steve1976]

I was actually thinking about replacing the red dot finder soon - I gather a 9x50 would be better than 6x30?

[part timer]

the bigger the better with finders!

Some people find the right angle type easier to use. Personally I prefer the straight through type as they just present the view upside down rather than mirror imaged. Much easier to turn a star chart upside down than try to mentally 'invert' it in my opinion.

Up to you which you find easier to navigate with.

[AWR]

I replaced the red-dot finder with a combination of a 9x50 RA finder and a Rigel Quikfinder. I find the quikfinder useful for getting in the general area and then use the finderscope to locate my target.

Andrew

[RikM]

I still have the 6x30 finder on my 150P, but I added a Rigel Quickfinder next to it and it really helps.

Rik