Help with eyepieces please

[thrax30]

What eyepieces from FLO's website does anyone recommend for the 150p dob? Looking to buy a couple of eyepieces as well as the ones supplied, and a nice wide angled one to keep the planets in view longer.

I was going to order a 6mm SkyWatcher Ultrawide Eyepiece from SNS, but with reading about their poor customer service I'm not so sure.

[thrax30]

Anyone ?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

For an F/8 scope you could go for a 35-40mm, which ideally should be 2" barrel diameter eyepieces (to support the wide field). I absolutely love my TMB Paragon 40 mm (69 deg apparent field of view). These may be too expensive. Cheaper similar EPs are the Willias Optics 40mm SWAN, or the Skywatcher Panaview 38mm. I do not know these latter two personally, but they have had decent reviews.

At the short end you should have a look at the TMB Planetary EPs and their clones. A 6mm may be OK, but I would go for an 8 as well, because this will find use when the seeing is less than perfect.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Michael

[Astro_Baby]

The big question is how much do you want to spend ? The second question is what do you want look at ?

Although the supplied EPs are nowehere nmear as bad as some would suggest almost any mid priced eyepiece will give you an improvement.

THe 38mm Panaview is good (I have one and love it and I know I am not alone) but its heavy and may give you balance problems. For a big wide field EP its probably the best around in its price range.

With high power eyepieces a lot depends on what you can get on with. As you push the power a lot of things happen - if you go the Plossl/Orthoscopic route the eyerelief can be a problem for some people. Glasses wearers have problems but even those who dont wear glasses sometimes find them uncomfortable (nay unpleasant) to use.

It all comes down to what you want to spend though at the end of the day. I could rave on about my Explore Scientific but if you dont want to spend £400 on an eyepiece its moot.

I think if I were buying from scartch today I'd look at the Skywatcher Nirvanas as a sort of high-midprice eyepiece.

[great_bear]

The general concensus is that the 6mm SkyWatcher Ultrawide is a very impressive EP for its price. Some experienced people swear by it, and the 9mm too. Your idea of getting the 6mm (200x) is a good one. Its partner however - the 9mm - at 133x isn't quite enough magnification for a "backup" on a bad night's seeing and - as Michael recommends - an 8mm would make a better choice (at 150x) for a #2 eyepiece.

I try to buy most gear from First Light Optics, however they don't seem to stock the best low-cost, comfortable planetaries, which would seem to be (a) TMB-Style Planetaries (£36 from Sky's the Limit), ( LER Planetaries (£62 from 365Astronomy), and © SkyWatcher Ultrawides (£30 from loads of places). I have the 8mm TMB-Style planetary and I think it's an amazing high-quality eyepiece - even without considering its low-cost!

You can get better eyepieces for more money, but at F8 you have the advantage that your scope will get good performance even from budget eyepieces. As for SnS they seem to be at last getting their act together these days so perhaps they've turned a corner - but this thread is not the best place to debate that.