New e/p advice please

[Nightjar]

I have an 8" f/10 SCT and until now have used the standard set of 1.25" Meade series 4000 plossls. Now that I have a shiny new WO 2" diagonal, I'm looking to buy a new 2" eyepiece that will give me a nice wide FOV. Can anyone recommend a good make, and recommend the best one to start with (18 mm ? 24mm ?) before I invest in a whole set. My budget per e/p is up to about £200.

Thanks in advance !

Nightjar

[russ]

I have no experience with the premium brand eyepieces at this size but my Meade LX50 8" f10 SCT worked beautifully with the Skywatcher Panaview 32mm giving a true field of 1.15deg). SCT's are slow scopes and quite forgiving on cheaper eyepieces. There may not be a need to splash too much money on a top quality eyepiece. The 38mm Panaview will give a true field of view of 1.36deg in the SCT and should be a well corrected view too. A 31mm Nagler by comparison will give a true field of 1.26deg.

[Andrew*]

My suggestion would be to get an eyepiece around 40mm with a ~70° FOV, such as a 38mm PanaView. This would give you a low 53x magnification with a 1.3° FOV. You could get the 26mm as well for medium size DSOs, providing 77x and just under 1° of true field.

The SCT isn't demanding on eyepiece choice, so while the PanaViews are a somewhat "budget" line, they will perform very competently in your scope.

I think these two would offer a great addition to your collection, allowing larger FOV's to be captured than your 1.25" eyepieces.

Andrew

[Andrew*]

Too slow - Russ has confirmed my thoughts!

[russ]

[Doc]

How about a William Optics 28mm Uwan I would imagine if you buy secondhand it's within your budget. It's got a FOV of 82° and will look awesome in your new WO diagonal.

[Nightjar]

Thanks for all the replies - so many in only a few minutes !

What about the Baader Hyperion series - anyone know what they are like ?

Nightjar

[Doc]

Thanks for all the replies - so many in only a few minutes !

What about the Baader Hyperion series - anyone know what they are like ?

Nightjar

At F10 they should be very good. I had the 21, 17 and 8mm and I found the 21mm gave me alot of comet tailed stars around the edges but then that was at F4.5.

[Andrew*]

They will do just fine in your SCT, and will work well for the higher powers. Unfortunately, they're not made in focal lengths longer than 24mm, so you will need to look elsewhere for low power. The Hyperion Aspheric, in 31mm and 36mm, do not offer as good value for money as the PanaViews.

Hyperions have suffered large price increases recently, so they're not as good value for money as they used to be. Additionally, they are large and bulky eyepieces.

Andrew

[russ]

At F10 they should be very good. I had the 21, 17 and 8mm and I found the 21mm gave me alot of comet tailed stars around the edges but then that was at F4.5.

They also have their Aspheric 2" widefield jobbies which are within budget. I have no idea what they are like and whether they would offer anymore over the Panaview for almost twice the price.

Baader Planetarium - Baader Hyperion Aspheric

Darn it, Andrew beat me to it this time! Spooky though, we are almost word for word thinking the same thing!

[Andrew*]

I think your money might be better spent on WO SWANs, for example. They will work just as well in your scope as Hyperions, but are cheaper, smaller, and with slightly larger AFOV.

A very well respected but extremely good value eyepiece is Skywatcher's Ultrawide. Like SWANs, they're better suited to slow scopes like your SCT. They have nice eye relief, and a fair 66° FOV.

Andrew

[Andrew*]

Can I tentatively suggest a line-up?

- 38mm PanaView (53x)

- 26mm PanaView (77x)

- 20mm UltraWide/SWAN (100x)

- 15mm UW/SWAN (133x)

- 9mm UW/SWAN (222x)

The SWANs and UltraWides share the same focal lengths, it just depends if you want to pay the extra for the 6° more AFOV and build quality.

The above would come to £250 for the UW route or £340 for the SWAN route. It's far lower than your budget, but as has been said, your SCT doesn't NEED a great expense on eyepieces to bring out its best. Skywatcher or William Optics UWANs would also be excellent performers. They have a much larger, 82° FOV as well, if you like that. Unfortunately the 4mm and 7mm focal lengths offered are not ideal for the SCT.

Andrew

[jeffo50]

Hello,

I have a nice bnib 2" 32mm SWA multi coated Ostara eye piece for under a ton.

Just click on my link to check it out.

other sizes available in 1.25" and 2".

Cheers

[Mr Spock]

I have a 42mm Vixen LVW I can recommend. It would give you x48 with a 1.5° field. It's the same mag + field I get with my OMC-140 which is what I bought it for. None of the blackouts/kidney beans you get with other wide field eyepieces.

[brantuk]

W/O SWAN or UWAN 30-40mm and I like the Hyperions too - very flexible with the 28mm and 14mm FTR's giving a range of magnifications.

[Andrew*]

Mr. Spock, sorry if I seem to be nit-picking, but I believe the 42mm LVW with its 65° AFOV would give a 1.37° TFOV.

Andrew

[Mr Spock]

Nope, it's 72°. The other LVWs are 65°. I have both types and the difference is huge

[Andrew*]

How odd - a google search shows sites that claim its AFOV as 65° and 72° in about equal proportions!

I'm didn't even know a 2" barrel can even accommodate that large a FOV, the largest being 40mm 70°, or 56mm 50° for example... Or so I thought...

I stand corrected

Andrew

[Mr Spock]

Here's the eyepiece:

And it's usable, unlike a Nagler where you have to strain to see the fov. You can see the whole field, no blackouts, plenty of eye relief and it is very sharp right to the edge.

[Andrew*]

Sounds fantastic. Unfortunately it's out of my financial reach...

[Moonshane]

I think the advice given so far is great and these guys know a lot more than me. that said, I'd urge you to think about possible future scope purchases too. you have a great scope currently and I am sure you'll keep it; in this case the eyepieces suggested are great. BUT if you eventually plan to or are possibly thinking about eg a small fast refractor for wider field views then this might not be so good with the eyepieces suggested.

if there's a chance that you may want a faster scope in future then I'd recommend you consider some premium versions of the eyepieces suggested.

if not then go for it!

for what it's worth I'd suggest pretty much what I have got (almost)

40mm Skywatcher Aero - about £130 new - FOV 1.44deg

24mm Televue Panoptic - maybe £160-180 used

19mm Televue Panoptic - maybe £140 used

14mm Televue Radian - £100-120 used

2.5x Televue Powermate - £120 used.

with the above you'd get the following magnifications / FOV per the attached

it's great spending other people's money!

lenses.pdf

[Andrew*]

Good call, Shane - think about the future!

[Moonshane]

ha ha - I always assume everyone's like me / us etc - always looking for that next astro purchase on the horizon!

the FOV's in the spreadsheet refer only to the 'unbarlowed' (of course the Powermate is not a Barlow) eyepieces. the order I put them in was the order I'd suggest you buy them in pretty much but you might want to bring forward the Powermate (highly recommended as far as I am concerned). up the list by one or two.

[pvaz]

Playing the "spending other people's money" game :

Nagler 31mm T5 - around 300£ used mint

Ethos 13mm - around 350£ used mint

Antares 1.6x barlow - around 80£ new (cheap and good)

That was my plan, ended up with a 10mm Ethos instead cause I couldn't find a 13mm at the time and a 10 works well too for small DSOs on my scope.

The cheaper alternative:

Panoptic 35mm - 180-230£ used mint

Nagler 17mm T4- 180-230£ used mint

Antares 1.6x barlow - 80£ new

[Chris H]

17T4 would be an excellent work horse ep in your F10 scope.