advice on an eyepiece purchase

[Nillchill]

Hi all,

Ive been looking at eyepieces for some lunar phtotography, and saw this on Ebay,

1.25" 2.5mm 58 Degree TMB designed Planetary eyepiece on eBay (end time 15-Jan-11 14:52:40 GMT)

is this a worthwhile eyepiece, or should I wait an save some more pennies, and invest in something better.

If so can someone suggest an alternative, please bear in mind I am using a SW130/650 so It may be a waste spending too much on the eyepiece.

Any advice will be gratefully received

cheers

[kniclander]

i have two similar design eps and i would say they are pretty good but 2.5mm may be too high mag for your scope. btw there is a german supplier, "Teleskop Service" or something like that who usually have a range of these in stock.

[John]

Those eyepieces are very good for their price but I agree with kniclander, 2.5mm is too powerful for your scope really - you would find the 3.2mm in that range a lot more useful.

[Nillchill]

top advice folks thanks very much for the input

the 3.2mm was one I was also considering

[Nillchill]

just a thought, using a 5mm with 2x barlow would give the same effect, but would this also be too much for what my scope could handle?

[LukeSkywatcher]

I agree. 2.5mm for the SW 130 is just pushing the scope beyond what it can handle.

I have a 4mm EP for a similar scope and i have only used it once to observe the Moon. Conditions were PERFECT and it worked well but it was still pushing the scope out of its comfort zone.

Yes you could use a 5mm + 2X barlow. This might just be at the top end of the scopes comfort zone. Better yet would be to use a 6mm+2X.

This is fine for the SW 130. I use this combo quite often for observing the moon.

Of course a lot depends on the quality of the Barlow. The TAL 2X is cheap (£35) but works AMAZINGLY well.