Warthog on eyepieces

[tom33pr]

Hi there,

I've just read the Warthog's article on eyepieces:

http://stargazerslounge.com/beginners-help-advice/80772-eyepieces-very-least-you-need.html

Interesting, indeed! It looks like having realtively limited budget I will need (for f/5 scope - Skywatcher 130p):

• 8mm + 2x Barlow,
  
• 18 mm,
  
• and 25mm.
  

Two eyepieces are supplied with my scope (10 and 25). The whole problem is down to the high power eyepiece. Warthog suggests that f5 scopes are rather bad with cheap eyepieces so instead of buying an expensive 4mm I can swap it for an 8mm + 2x Barlow. My point is: is it really possible to buy a decent 8mm + 2x Barlow cheaper than a gdecent 4mm? Sure, I could just go and buy a cheap 8mm but will it cope fine with this scope (as suggested above high power scopes are apparently bad with cheap eyepieces).

What sort of price should I expect for a decent (not fancy) 8mm + 2x Barlow and on the other hand what should I expect to pay for a decent 4mm (maybe 5mm?) that would work nicely with my scope?

I would really appreciate any suggestions here.

Reagrds,

Tom.

[Debostar]

I had the same conundrum as you, and being a novice, I just took the advice in the post and ordered a Barlow 2x instead of ordering a 4mm EP and the price was actually a bit more for the Barlow than the 4mm EP. From what I have deduced from all the stuff written in the aforementioned post, it appears that a 4 mm EP is uncomfortable to the eye.....When my Barlow 2x arrives from NYC USA, I will try it and give you my opinion....I only need it to make Jupiter a bit larger.

[tom33pr]

thanks a lot! I wonder why there's no advice coming... this is the third time I'm trying to get some suggestions over... maybe im wording my posts in a wrong way... ah well....

[brantuk]

Hi Tom - as allways it's hard to recommend stuff without some guide on budget and how many ep's you intend to fit into it. Also if you're looking for wide field low power, high magnification planetary, or general purpose, etc, and maybe what you intend to use it for.

E.g I could suggest a barlow. For £30 ish a new Tal 2x is great value for money. Next step up would be a Celestron Ultima 2x (or Orion Shorty 2x) at around £85. A shorty sold for £50 s/h recently in the for sale section. For around £180 a Televue Powermate is one of the best you can buy - one went for £110 on astro buy/sell recently.

A bit more info and you'll get loads of replies I guarantee - it's a fave talking topic lol

[swamp thing]

Hi Tom

As Debostar has said a lower budget eyepieces of 4mm F Length usually have uncomfortably short eye relief making them not very user friendly.

Plus having a Barlow lens gives you a 9mm and a 12.5 too if you get the eyepieces mentioned, so a more complete set is had for less money.

IMO i would buy a good quality Barlow lens as the economy models are less than useless. You would also be able to use it when you progress onto higher quality eyepieces.

Price of eyepieces is not my strong point i would have a look at telescope house or FLO's link at the top of the page.

Regards Steve

[tom33pr]

Brantuk, - thanks a lot - this helps a lot and narrows options down!

Steve - thanks for additional info!

[tom33pr]

Brantuk - so maybe to elaborate a bit... As I mentioned I have two eps supplied with the scope. What I need is the highpower set for my 130p/f5 (either 4mm EP or a combination of 8mm + 2x Barlow - still don't know what's better...).

I don't want to go for a cheap kit (say 5 pieces + barlow + filters) as I feel most of this stuff would be pretty useless. I just need a high power option for the planets, for now...

Budget? Say up to £120.

So my main question is: better to get 8mm/2xBarlow or 4mm on it's own?

[bombassa]

As stated by Debostar very short focal length eyepieces can be rather uncomfortable because of short eye relief and a very small lens to look through. I went for a short focal length ortho for high power and oh yes the lens is small and you really get personal with it.

I have a scope similar to yours (130-650) and I went for a 15 mm plossl (Vixen NPL) for medium size eyepiece that I have been quite happy with - I don't use my Barlow much.

These two eyepieces and the original supplied 25 mm are really the only three eyepieces I use and so far it's working fine.

The supplied eyepieces are modified Kellners (RKE) and the 10 mm doesn't Barlow very well - at least not in my (f/5) scope. I read somewhere that RKE eyepieces aren't very suited for fast scope in general.

The Talx2 Barlow is often recommended by other users as a budget option and is about £30 new. A decent plossl will probably be about the same. But the whole Barlow idea is you get more options from few eyepieces.

On the other hand the TMB clones are also recommended here but I have no experience with these and don't know how they perform at f/5. Prices around £40 have been quoted from some e-bay vendor. These generally have big lenses and good eye relief.

Perhaps you should look at the second hand market? You only need 50 posts to see the sale section here.

Oh I can see you've got more answers while I typed this. Sorry if much is redundant.

Jimi

[tom33pr]

Guys, Thanks a lot! I think I'll give up on 4mm then

[brantuk]

The William Optics Super Planetaries are quite nice in your price range - the 6mm and 12.5mm certainly worth a punt at £59. The TMB's I've not used but have heard good things about them as above.

The Baader Hyperion 8mm can be gotten s/h for around £60 and is a good mid range quality ep that's works very well in 3 of my scopes (all F5 and including a 130P).

Or you could blow the whole budget on one really good TV Radian which sell for around £100 s/h. But I wouldn't really recommend a newbie to do that cos you need to appreciate what you're seeing before throwing cash at ep's.

Alternatively - Meade do some very nice wide angle ep's that you can get around £50 s/h. I'm a convert to s/h by the way cos you can get some great bargains buying from proper astronomers who tend to keep their stuff in very good nick.

Hope that helps

[tom33pr]

brantuk, thanks again! Looks like I'm goin got do a lot of research before buying anything + it'll be probably s/h, as you suggetsted

[stardad]

So where do you find all these second hand Ep's? Usual places like Fleabay or do shops specialise in them like you can get second hand camera's ?

[John]

So where do you find all these second hand Ep's? Usual places like Fleabay or do shops specialise in them like you can get second hand camera's ?

There is the UK Astro Buy & Sell website:

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell

Then there is the buy & sell section here on SGL but you need 50+ posts plus a months membership of the forum to access that.

E.bay is OK if you know exactly what you are looking for.

Photo shops generally don't stock decent astro equipment (though there are one or two exceptions).