meade etx 125 pe what eyepieces?

[Pete Presland]

hi all

at the weekend i picked up my new scope etx 125 PE,wow what a piece of equipment it is!

i will be using my standard meade series 4000 eyepieces,would a reasonable upgrade be televue plossl's and would i notice much difference.i have never looked through a televue plossl but they seem to have a very good reputation and the price is within my budget!

any thoughts would be appreciated

thanks pete

[John]

I honestly don't think you would notice any difference between your Meade 4000's and Tele Vue Plossls, nice though they are. I used to mix Meade 3000 plossls with Tele Vue plossls and I could not, from the views, tell which was which in the dark !.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Go for wider fields of view, if you want to upgrade. I got my first wide-angle a few years back (a TMB Paragon 40mm) and became seriously hooked. I see the ETX 125 has only a 1.25" eyepiece holder, so anything beyond 25 mm in 65 deg AFOV would be not fit. The good news is that because the scope is F/15 you do not require premium EPs.

At the short end consider replacing the plossls with a TMB Planetary. More field of view and better eye relief.

[andrew63]

I recently bought a BST ED Explorer eyepiece really on the recommendation from these forums, they would be similar to TMB mentioned above, from sky's the limit.

regards andrew

[Ags]

The ETX is a Mak, right? I'm happy with the EPs I got for my similar (smaller) Mak - see sig. The Hyperion gives the widest FOV you can get from 1.25" EPs. The TS Planetaries are TMB clones. The only one I plan to replace is the 15mm plossl - I want a 80 degree EP in its place...

[Capricorn]

Have the ETX 105 and I have collected the TV plossls as an improvement over the M 4000's. They are better, don't expect things that were invisible to suddenly jump out or a blurred Jupiter to become razer sharp.

Also picked up the WO SWANS for slightly wider views.

The WO's are a set of 3 and quite affordable, think they are 9, 15 and 20mm so you get a decent magnification also.

Any of the decent makes at around 60-80 should be good, suggest you pick one range as they are usually par-focal and that is useful when swapping eyepiece round.

[andrew63]

It depends on which M 4000 you are talking about - the original 5 element Japan version is very fine indeed!

[Capricorn]

Just realised that this thread is effectively dead.

Original post was March and looking at BG1's signature (now) they now have a selection of TV plossl's.

So the question is: Are the TV plossl's significantly better for you then the Meades were?

Would help others who may have to make the same decision.