Which Eyepieces??

[Kit-Fox]

Hi Folks

As you can see I have the OmniXLT 150 scope. It came with a 25mm EP. I also have one of the galileoscopes which as a 20mm EP & a decent x2 barlow.

I was just wondering what EPs I should think about adding to increase my views. I like looking at the moon and hunting down nebulas mostly if that affects the decision at all.

Hope you folks can help

EDIT; Did have a gander at Warthogs guide, but i'm easily confused. hence the asking

[Chris H]

What budget do you have?

[pbyrne]

You can't go far wrong with a couple of plossls to start off with, I have used the Meade Series 4000s in the past and found them very good, the Celestron Ultimas are excellent and come up for sale regularly, top of the range are the Televue Plossls.

If you are happy with your current eyepieces then a 15 or 14mm eyepiece will help, combined with your barlow that will give you eyepieces of 25, 20, 14, 10 and 7mm, that should cover most everything. You might want to consider an eyepiece around the 32mm mark, as a finder eyepiece and it will be better for larger nebulae.

For the moon orthos are an excellent choice as they offer very sharp views, they regularly come up for sale and they are not expensive.

For nebulae you might need help from a filter such as a UHC to cut out some of the light pollution an bring the nebulae out better.

Hope this has been of some help.

[ronin]

Spec say 150mm dia and 750mm focal length, so F/5.

The 25mm eyepiece will give 30x, the 20mm eyepiece will give 37.5x.

No idea how good or bad the barlow is, but I am assuming not great, also the scope is F/5 and so will benefit from a reasonable eyepiece.

The moon is big so the 20mm should be fair, a bit more magnification may help, depends on the detail you want to see, craters or areas.

I would suggest that you keep on the path you seem to have ended up on and look for a 15mm and a 10mm, eventually a 5mm. Basically you end up with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25. May seem a bit simple but the scope would seem to suit it.

Wide angle options may be useful, just for a bit extra. According to WH's guide 3-4mm is as small as it is worth thinking of and 5mm is probably small enough, 5mm = 150x mag.

[Kit-Fox]

I have a budget of £60 for each Ep and enough for 2 maybe 3 EPs in total.

The barlow is surprisingly good actually given that it came from the galileoscope. Allows for quite a fair bit of detail of the moon to be seen. As the lenses used are quite small though it does reduce the visible image.

So the consensus seems to be that I should aquire a longer focal Ep such as a 32mm and a smaller length EP for higher magnification such as an 8mm or 10mm ?

[crazyjedi]

For lookin at the moon and nebulae you will need rather different EP's and a UHC filter for the nebulae.

For the moon you'll need a good plossl of reasonable power. A 10 or 15mm plossl Celestron X-Cel or Meade 4000 series would be good for around that price. Also if you're keen on the moon a lunar filter would help to bring out contrast and prevent you from having a moon sized spot in front of your eye for the rest of the night. For neblulae perhaps a wider field of view and lower mag would help. The meade QX series are a budget range of wide field lenses that may fit your price range. A 20 or 25mm may be good for your scope. Not tried the Meade Qx series myself but have heard good things.

Clear Skies

[Kit-Fox]

Ok guys having had a looky on FLO I thought I might go for 3 of the meade 4000 series.

The following focal lengths

9.7mm

15mm

32mm

Based on what fokls have said that seems to be whats recommended for the type of observing I like to do. Thanks for the advice folks, and if anyone thinks of anything else just chime up. i'm not putting in the order right away, will probably wait a week or two and read up as much as possible first see if i can get my head round it all

[ajg]

If you wear eyeglasses, that 9.7mm isn't going to be good as it only has 4mm of eye relief. Even if you don't, your eyeball will be getting very up-close-and-personal with the front element!

[Kit-Fox]

Perhaps a celestron xcel 8mm or 10mm then? These seem to get good recommendations for having decent eye relief.

I dont wear glasses but I dont like having my eye right up against the front element so that is something to consider as well, hadnt actually considered eye relief to be a major issue ??

[ajg]

Plossl eye relief is usually about 70-80% of focal length, so the shorter the eyepiece, the worse it gets.

For the short focal length, it might be worth looking at something like the TMB Planetary - there's a 9mm on fleaBay ... 1.25" 9mm 58 Degree TMB designed Planetary eyepiece on eBay (end time 04-Jul-10 19:26:37 BST) (I'm not the seller and I don't know who they are, so as with all things fleaBay, caveat emptor!)

[LukeSkywatcher]

For a better chance of spotting DSOs, then a low power EP somewhere in the range of 30-32-40mm will give a nice wide FOV and make it easier to spot faint fuzzies. You can then increase the magnification to zoom in on them.

Also as stated.........a light pollution filter will help cut through the crud and make things a bit easier.

My scope is slightly smaller in apeture to yours but on the average clear night i get great views of the moon (when visible) with it using a 6mm EP and a TAL 2X barlow.

Do you have a Moon filter?

Very useful for when the moon is anything over 50% illuminated.

[crazyjedi]

The celestron X-cel does give good eye relief and is of good quality. The meade 4000 range are again good quality but as has been stated the high mag lenses are rather tight to your tube. As Paul says a lower power lens is better for nebulae (+ a nebula filter). Unfortunately the moon and DSO's require totally different lenses for best views. You don't have to get all of your lenses from the same manufacturer or at the same time, so why not get a couple of good plossl's (celestron x-cel or meade 4000 somewhere between 5 and 15mm) and then get the wide angle lower power lenses when you've gathered a little more money (25 - 40mm). I tend to pick and choose individual EP's from different manufacturers based on needs, price and recommendations. If it wasn't for the price caveat i would have a mixture of meade 5000's and Televue Nagler's, but hey, here's dreaming!

[Kit-Fox]

Well the price caveat is limited by the money I cureently have saved for the purpose. If I put it off for longer I could increase the price per EP.

Or if I get just one or two this time would increase the price per EP to about £90.

Just wanted to get at least one for each purpose this time as I do both types of observing quite unplanned ( I hop about and change focus many times in a session)

[LukeSkywatcher]

I am slowly trying to upgrade my EP collection (but i am such a cheap barsteward) that i am going from bog standard Celestron Plossls to higher quality Celestron Plossls.

Celestron seem to be within my price range.

I have agreed to buy a 40mm Vixen EP................to replace my 32mm Celestron (which i LOVED)..............

Slowly but surely.

I also have a 4mm Omni in the post..............which i hope to use only for planetary observing.

[John]

Nothing wrong with Celestron plossls although, in the 1.25" fitting a 32mm will show as much sky as a 40mm and with an asthetically nicer FoV.

[crazyjedi]

Yeah i have a restricted budget too. i'm buying a bit at a time. I'm buying a Meade 5000 every month or two or three depending on how much the price of beer goes up.

You'll find that you can get some very good quality high power plossl's for around 90 squid, but the wide field monsters cost hundreds each!!!!!!!!! The Meade QX series are supposed to be reasonable wide field EP's - good for DSO's. All of the Meade QX series are under 90 squid and give 70 degree FOV so good for DSO Viewing. and the high powered Meade 4000 series come in at under £50. I think the Celestron X-Cel series are around the £75-80 mark so you could go for a QX and an X-Cel of your choice and stay within budget.

[LukeSkywatcher]

Nothing wrong with Celestron plossls although, in the 1.25" fitting a 32mm will show as much sky as a 40mm and with an asthetically nicer FoV.

This i know. No sooner had i agreed the purchase of the 40mm EP.............a 32mm (same as i had) was up for sale.

I did LOVE my Celestron 32mm.

I dropped it.............the lens cracked.

I really loved the 32mm Celestron so much that i will replace it. Beautiful EP.

The FOV with the 32mm was STUNNING.

I'm hoping the Vixen 40mm will give me the same FOV but with a bit better quality then the Celestron 32mm.

I'm sure it will...............but if it is the same as the Celestron 32mm..................I WILL BE CHUFFED.

[John]

The Meade QX series are supposed to be reasonable wide field EP's - good for DSO's. All of the Meade QX series are under 90 squid and give 70 degree FOV so good for DSO Viewing. and the high powered Meade 4000 series come in at under £50. I think the Celestron X-Cel series are around the £75-80 mark so you could go for a QX and an X-Cel of your choice and stay within budget.

I had a Meade QX 26mm 2" eyepiece which came with a 12" Meade Lightbridge dobsonian. It was pretty dissapointing TBH and would hardly even come to focus with that scope (since then I've discovered this is normal with that eyepiece). From what I've read on the other members of the QX range they are OK in slow scopes (eg: F/10) but are not great performers in faster scopes.

The Meade 5000 ranges (Plossls, SWA's and UWA's) are much better prospects IMHO.

[crazyjedi]

The meade 5000 UWA are what i'm after right now (my birthday is soon and i live in hope). The big question is, are there any good budget wide angle lenses??

Also I've noticed from reviews that a mixture of Meade 5000 UWA's and SWA's come out as top choices (usually UWA's for higher powers and SWA's for lower powers. Odd as the UWA has a wider FOV. Anyone with an experience based opinion would help me in not wasting my birthday money

[Moonshane]

Plossl eye relief is usually about 70-80% of focal length, so the shorter the eyepiece, the worse it gets.

For the short focal length, it might be worth looking at something like the TMB Planetary - there's a 9mm on fleaBay ... 1.25" 9mm 58 Degree TMB designed Planetary eyepiece on eBay (end time 04-Jul-10 19:26:37 BST) (I'm not the seller and I don't know who they are, so as with all things fleaBay, caveat emptor!)

I've never used one of these but many rave about them. at that price they are worth a punt. I agree the 9mm would be a good match with what you have as you could use it with the barlow to get 4.5mm too. personally I never got on with the very tight eye relief of plossls.

try this one and see how you go. I can vouch for this seller - he's really nice and helpful.

if I was you I'd go for the 9mm and buy a red dot finder like a Telrad or maybe a Rigel Quikfinder. this will transform your ability to put the scope in the right place. other eyepieces can come later.

personally I chose to go only for Televue some time ago. You can get the Radians which are the TV version of the TMBs for about £100 used. they are excellent in every way in my view. quality eyepieces and accessories can last a lifetime even if you change your scope - you probably will eventually - we all do!

[great_bear]

The Revelation EP Set is a good buy <click here> however with an F5 scope you may find that you have to barlow Plossls to get rid of the astigmatism at the field edge except at smaller exit pupils. You can use the supplied Barlow in the kit, and just screw the element directly onto the filter thread of the eyepieces so you don't get too much magnification. That also helps the tight eye relief on (e.g.) the 9mm.

Note that the above isn't a fault with the Revelation Plossls. The original design of Plossls in general simply isn't designed to work at F5 (except Televue Plossls, which are a specially tweaked Plossl, designed to work down to F4).

I think a lot of people don't realise that the Plossls in the Revelation Photo-Visual Kit are identical to the current Meade Series 4000 Plossls. They are optically the same eyepiece - but at a much lower cost. Both are made by Guen Shang Optical of Taiwan.

Apart from the Revelation Kit, the biggest bang-per-buck in Plossls in my opinion is the current crop of Sky-Watcher "Super Plossls" (the newer, current model), which are very much like GSO Plossls but with some very minor differences. Optically they are so similar I suspect the optics may be the same.

[nicnac]

televue are pretty much the bees knees and a fair price at telescope house, here is a link.

TeleVue Plossl Eyepieces

just a shame first light optics does not stock them

[crazyjedi]

Televue are the bees knees i've heard many times but in a recent 'sky at night magazine' review of wide angle EP's the much vaunted televue nagler came out 3rd behind a Meade UWA and the winner - the Celestron Axiom. The Televue was commended for it's optics but the other two were generally better apparently. Either way no one can argue with Al Nagler when it comes to EP's - I just can't afford any of his

[nicnac]

i think the price was one of its down falls and the basic design and weight if i remember but its all about the optics and as far as plossls go i dont think they will be beat.

in a fast scope i thinks thats when they hold there own

[John]

...The big question is, are there any good budget wide angle lenses??...

The general rule is:

sharp across the field in fast scopes | wide angle | low cost

Pick any two .....

I know it sounds a bit trite but I think it's still pretty much the case. However if you own a slower scope (ie: F/8 or slower) then lower cost eyepieces generally perform much better.