Can you have too many E.P.'s?

[Pauly]

I bought my current set of equipment off the well known auction site, and included was a Celestron eye opener set with the following additions:

Meade ultra wide 4.7mm

Tele vue 8mm, no idea what spec

unbranded silver bodied 20mm plossl

Meade 3000 40mm

Meade 2x Barlow

Meade variable polariser

This translates to the following line up:

4, 4.7W, 6, 8, 9, 15, 20, 32, 40, plus the Barlow, polariser and a set of filters.

Question is, do I need all these E.P's? Or would it make sense to rationalise the set, sell off some of the surplus and use the funds for upgrades or extra bits and bobs?

[Neon]

I'd hang fire on selling anything until you have a better idea of which eyepieces you use more than the rest. Normally people slowly build up a collection of eyepieces, depending on which ones they need to cover various magnifications with their telescopes. You have the luxury of doing it the other way around and deciding which ones you could happily do without.

Certain of those eyepieces sound like keepers though, like the TeleVue and the Meade UWA. Their performance should hopefully distinguish them from the rest. Also, how they perform in your telescope will be a decider in which eyepieces you keep, as well as your method of viewing (Alt-Az mounts are much easier to use with wide angle eyepieces).

HTH

Mark

[AWR]

Yes you can!

Send me the Televue straightaway!

Andrew

[Pauly]

Mark, yes that does help thank you.

Andrew, No..

[MG1]

Pauly, you seem to have a bit of a gap around the 12.5mm mark.....let me know if you're interested in an excellent Williams 12.5SPL I'm just not getting much use out of my eps now I'm getting stuck into imaging.

So I'd answer yes to the OP if like me you're spending more time at the screen, but a bit fat NO if you're visual an trying to squeeze the last drop out of your seeing.

Mike

[Macavity]

I think you can have as many as you can "afford".

But, of those, I often find I commonly use but a subset. Working from a number of common eyepiece manufactures series, I sense most of these work on (roughly!) a 1.6x focal length increment. Thus we have two main series: 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 or alternatively 6, 10, 16, 24... etc. I sense this might have some basis in the "Golden Ratio", Fibonacci Series, whatever...

Others base such things on field stop size, or subjectively via what works with scope/target/seeing...

[Capricorn]

No!. :eek:

Simply not possible to have too many.

Think I can see at least 20 around the room and one somewhere that I haven't seen for about 15 months. Think it fell off the table and disappeared under or in to something somewhere.

OK maybe's a few more then 20, say 25. but not many more then that.

Can think of a couple more I would like to get and try.

[perrin6]

No!.

Think I can see at least 20 around the room and one somewhere that I haven't seen for about 15 months. Think it fell off the table and disappeared under or in to something somewhere.

OK maybe's a few more then 20, say 25. but not many more then that.

Blimey - are your sure you have enough telescopes to service that lot !

[Albireo380]

No!.

Simply not possible to have too many.

I quite agree, I am not sure I even understand the concept of "too many" EPs.

I found myself upgrading EPs from inexpensive ones to expensive ones, but never selling off the old ones. It s only after 7 years of EP collecting that I have finally decided to sell off some of the ones I never use - but it will still be a wrench. Still, gotta get some cash for all that new Skywatcher kit that is coming soon.

Tom

[Moonshane]

I am trying to stick to a maximum of six eyepieces (don't use barlows etc) and this really does serve me well. I think a critical area is the higher magnification side as in my scopes (both 1600mm focal length) a small change from eg 5-6mm makes a big difference and this is why I bought the 3-6mm zoom.

eg 3mm = 533x, 4mm = 400x, 5mm = 320x, 6mm = 267x, 8mm = 200x but eg 15mm = 107x and 20mm = 80x.

my current set-up (see below gives me 46x, 72x, 123x, 145x, 200x, 267-533x).

all that said, I tend to think in magnification at the higher mag end and field of view at the lower mag end and my range gives me FOVs of

1.49, 0.94, 0.81, 0.34, 0.30 and 0.09-0.19.

[perrin6]

3 good quality eyepieces seems to do me fine (93X,197X,300X. My lowest power is X93, 0.7 degree with 19mm panoptic, I could get a longer focal length eyepiece but even at 93X the image is quite grey due I think mainly to light pollution so a lower power image would look awful. Plus I chose to install a relatively small diagonal mirror to maximize contrast, 63mm minor axis (19% obstruction), and this is a bit small for a fully-illuminated wide field. I never get to a dark-sky site to make it worthwhile having a low power, wide-field eyepiece.

I've never had a barlow as I've always wanted to have as little glass as possible between me and the object, after reading why astronomical telescopes show the image inverted, as an extra element is required to show it up right way and this blocks some light so is considered too detrimental.

[Mr Spock]

With eyepieces it horses for courses.

I use my 42mm LVW and 22mm Nagler in the 80mm/120mm refractors for low power views.

In the 250mm f4.8, I use the 22mm Nagler x55 with MPCC for wide views - 2" only. My others (1 1/4) are: 32mm Plössl x38 for finding things, 13mm LVW x93 for deep sky, 9mm NLV x133 for doubles, 7mm Nagler x171 for deep sky, 6mm TMB x200 for doubles/planets and 4mm NLV x300 for planets.

For me the only thing I'm missing is a 5mm x240. Most likely I'll be looking for a NLV.

[Capricorn]

Problem is that I have 3 scopes, small f/5 achro, f/12.5 Mak and f/7 ED.

The collection of eyepieces was basically to have about 4 good ones for each. However each scope is completely different to another.

Several eyepieces are cheapies that I managed to get my hands on and will be used if I take a scope to a public night. Don't mind a finger on a £20 eyepiece as much as I would on a TV eyepiece. WO SWANS have nice big bits of glass at the top that attract fingers. So the lesser ones get used then.

So slowly but stedily the collection has incremented.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

At the moment I have just 4: 40mm TMB Paragon (2"), 22mm Nagler T4 (2"), 14mm UWA (1.25") and an 8mm Radian (1.25"). This gives me a gap at 10mm (cue one more Radian), and perhaps I will replace the 14mm UWA with the 17 and 12 mm Nagler T4s. If ever I get that F/5 scope, only the 40mm is redundant, and I would need another Radian (or 2) at the short end. Thus, good EPs can be used across the board on different scopes, at least in the middle of the range. You will need additional EPs at either end of the range.

[Pauly]

Well I suppose, from all the input, the short is 'no'. However, it would seem there is plenty of room for improvement. I need to get some serious observing under my belt to determine which ones are keepers and which are not, but from my limited experience ther are already a couple that stand out as belonging to the first group.

[bish]

I've got a 5, 6, 8, 9.7, 15 and 26 (with 2x barlow). Rarely use the 6 or 8 but will probably buy more (better) ones and not bother getting rid of the old.

[Ags]

I've got 6mm, 9mm, 15mm, 24mm and 25mm. The 24mm is 68 degrees FOV and the 25mm is just a plossl. Don't need the 25 but don't want to sell it as it came with the scope and I can throw it in if I sell the scope second hand.

I want to get a 7mm orthoscopic and a 13mm hyperion. And maybe a 5mm orthoscopic to push the scope on the Moon and Mars and doubles. And what about those cheap 80-degree EPs from Astronomica? just the 11mm of those, or the 16mm as well? If I really save up I could add the Speers-WALER 5-8mm zoom...

[SiriusB]

As someone who probably DOES have too many eyepieces, i'd say the answer to you question is a qualified yes.

The previous advice to enjoy you current collection for a while before deciding to part with/ add to is good advice.

Everyones eyes are different- what suits you may not suit another,-you'll know after using them for a while.

& there aren't any "perfect" eyepieces out there no matter what the ads may say.

As to how many is too many? Well that depends if you're purely a visual observer, your bank balance & how many different scopes you own.

A wide range of focal lengths is good, particularly if you own a small scope like myself as you can better match the magnification to the current seing/transparency conditions.

However be warned- you can spend more time swapping eyepieces in the focuser than enjoying the views, which at the end of the day is what it is all about

Hope that helps.