eyepiece help for my mak

[chesty]

i have a new celestron nexstar 127slt mak and feel i need to get 2 new eyepieces and maybe a barlow to get more from it,i enjoy looking at planets and any dso,s available to me. i have about 40 pounds to spend on each,being very new to this i am unsure what to go for and what would suit my scope,your thoughts greatly appreciated

[twotter]

I would have thought you're going to be looking at plossls of one sort or another. My collection includes GSO Revelations & Meade 4000s, in various sizes, which I like, though there are other makes of course. Try clicking on the 'FLO' link at the top of the page and look at what they have to offer.

There is an excellent 'sticky' on here that explains the different sizes you might want to consider.

[david o]

Hi chesty,

The Mak's med/high focal ratio of 11.8 means that it'll be forgiving on EPs, so you *won't* have to buy premium ones.

The aperture of 127mm gives a max usable magnification of about 150x under the best seeing, say about 100x in normal conditions.

The focal length of 1500mm wiil give good magnification even with EPs of medium f/l, so no need of a Barlow.

The 'scope probably came with two EP's: 25mm (60x) and 9mm (167x, right at the max usable limit).

Plug the gap between them with a 15mm (100x) and then get a 32mm (47x) or 40mm (38x & a really nice EP) for lower mag, wider fields of view. These Celestron Omni Plössls will work as well in your little Mak as they do in my big Mak.

If you're buying with an eye to the future, building an EP set that'll stay with you and work in any 'scope you use, then stretch to a couple of 2nd hand TeleVue Plössls (with the money you saved not buying a Barlow ).

[chesty]

so am i right in thinking if i went for a 5mm i would be wasting my time and money, ps thanks for advice guys think i might try the televue route just need to be sure which ones:confused:

[CGolder]

Hi chesty, i would certainly invest in a max fov eyepiece, for your price i would recomend getting a few bst explorers, 26mm for max fov, then 8mm, 12mm or 18mm depending on you preference, in my opinion you wont get better in you price bracket

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[Ags]

Hi, you always get different opinions about eyepieces and magnification, all I can say is regularly use mags of over 200 with my mak, which is smaller than yours.

To have a clear view of planetary detail I find that 150x is a minimum.

You could buy a TMB clone for planetary viewing - the TS Planetaries I use cost 50 pounds from Modern Astronomy and they are a well-regarded version of the TMBs, but you can find TMBs for under 40 pounds. TMBs have a wider field of view than plossls, as well as good contrast, better eye relief and twist-up eye cups.

[Ags]

To answer your question, a 5mm eyepiece would probably be too much magnification (300x) for everything but the moon and double stars. One thing to consider is that as you magnify planets, they get fainter. I would look for a good 8 or 7mm EP.

There was a comparison of BST Explorers versus TMBs on SGL recently - the BSTs came out on top, slightly.