Eyepiece, Curious at ppl answers

[Lurker]

What is it you want to achieve with this purchase? Greater magnification? Wider field of view? If you can give us some pointers on that, we can probably produce answers more tailored to your needs.

Haven't got a clue just yet, It won't be a couple of months before I buy another " decent " eyepiece, Probably go for Ethos but not sure on mm yet, I want to wait a bit and try to look at other people's scope and try to attend a star party this year then, I'll probably have a clear idea on what to buy next.

Notice to self bring notepad and pen, so I can write down eyepieces on people's scopes that I would possbility like to buy.

[Lurker]

The original question was which eyepiece do we like to use and why.

Here are some of the reasons for the varying answers:

• budget - everyone has a budget they can afford or are willing to pay. this is often the starting point for whatever we buy.
  
• scopes - any one eyepiece will have different magnification, field of view and quality of image for a given scope. As a group we have many different scopes so will have many different favourites.
  
• targets - in my opinion, a planet requires a different type of eyepiece to a wide cluster or nebula to get the best out of the target.
  
• observing conditions - this as others have suggested makes a massive difference on the 'best' eyepiece for the conditions and target you face, especially at higher magnifications.
  
• really they are all the same - OK there is a difference in quality between the cheaper plossls and the expensive wide fields but if you can accept a little bit of 'blurryness' at the field edge, some chromatic aberation or a slight reduction in contrast, the cheaper options will still show you the same things that the expensive ones will. the image quality with a £700 eyepiece and a £25 plossl is not 28x better. e.g. my £70 12.5mm BGO gives a more pleasing image of Jupiter than my £400+ 13mm Ethos.
  

If you look through any threads on eyepieces there will be lots of different opinions and the above reasons explain some of them.

I think the general answer is that the eyepiece which is best is the one which gives the sharpest image of the subject, places it nicely in the field of view with a bit of space around it and shows sufficient detail to observe the features well. Only buy any equipment to fill a need and try and get to look through the eyepiece you want next in your scope before you buy it. Start a thread to ask for help and I bet there will be someone local who will help - or attend a star party.

My personal favourites (when seeing allows) are:

Wide field low magnification - 22mm Panoptic (72x)

Wide field medium magnification - 13mm Ethos (123x)

Planetary - 12.5mm Baader Genuine Ortho (128x) if the seeing allows 8mm Radian (200x)

Lunar - 6-3mm Nagler zoom (267-533x)

My 'procedure' is work through the eyepieces I have and select the next highest magnification until the seeing goes mushy. Then choose the one back from the point where this happened and use that eyepiece. This is why I have a wide range of options at the higher magnification end but you will note that the 'fill in' options were of a cheaper eyepiece relatively speaking (eg used 7mm BGO at £40). If only Televue would offer a 14-7mm Nagler zoom.

cheers

Shane

That is a very very good quality post. I am sure it will help alot of newbies like me. As you mentioned about starting a thread asking for eyepiece, I already did that and got Ethos 13mm. But I will deffo do it again asking for advice before purchasing my next eyepiece.

Nice post.

[Moonshane]

I love my 13mm Ethos and for things live globular clusters and open clusters it really is superb, really brings them to life.

BUT I don't think I'll be buying another Ethos and would not feel short changed with a 13m Nagler. The reason for this view is that I'd sooner spend more money on other things for the time being. I built up my eyepiece collection over a couple of years and also sold a few books and things to fund them.

Don't rush into anything just yet - enjoy what you have and then buy to enable views of something that your current kit does not allow.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Our 16" Ritchey-Chretien at the institute is equipped with Baader Hyperions (including the 24 and 36mm) and they are very good. They do want to check out my EPs to see the difference, but Baader Hyperions are good value for money.

[Chris H]

With an 8 inch dob you could probably need just two ep's and a x2 barlow/powermate. A low power ep such as a 31mm Nagler, 28mm Uwan or 28mm Nirvana, the 13mm Ethos that you have already ordered and the barlow to make the 13 into a 6.5 giving you x184 with this simple and compact collection you would easily be able to get the most out of your scope.

[Demonperformer]

I want to wait a bit

IMHO an excellent idea. In my experience, if I don't have a positive reason for buying something I usually don't end up doing anything really positive with it. Once you do know why you want your next purchase you are more likely to put it to good use.