Saturn

I own a celesctron set which contains about 6 eyepieces

Meade and later Celestron started a special offer with their new scopes for a limited period a year or so ago in which you got a range of eyepieces. The Celestron one had less eyepieces but did include a filter set iirc.

These are a great general purpose range of eyepieces. Sometime I'll save up to buy a nagler, but until then this set will do me.

Although the deal is over now, I mention it as you may be able to pick up a set relatively cheap second hand on ukastroads[1] or buy&sell.

Cheers,
~Al



[1] now at easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrish/aa-ads.htm rather than ukastroads.co.uk for some reason.

Thanks again folks. I shall keep an eye open for one of those sets.
I've lost Saturn now, the clouds have moved in, but I have to say, surely there's strings holding it up there, but I can't see them. Or is it strings holding us above it .
seriously though, it's amazing!
Bill H.

Hi Bill

If you are looking for an eyepiece try ebay.com or ebay.co.uk and do a search for telescope eyepiece. Meade and celestron sets often go at a very keen price.

Bill,
Good to hear you're haveing fun with your new scope! Saturn is indeed a spectacular object to look at. It never ceases to amaze me.
On the average night, 200x is a good magnification to use on the planets. On steadier night you'll be able to above this but I'd avise getting an eyepiece that will provide roughly this magnification first. For the LX90, this means an eyepiece of approx. 10mm.
Alot of the new eyepieces produced now are pretty good. I have the Meade eyepiece set and fine them pretty good. I'd recommend getting the 9.7mm Meade 4000 Series Super Plossl. Alternatively, you could get the 12.4mm Meade 4000 Series Super Plossl. Neither will disappoint. For the moment however, I would not getting an eyepiece above this just yet as you'll get little use out of it.
An excellent site for buying new and second-hand astro gear is www.astromart.com I find it excellent and is where I get most of my astro stuff now. I picked up two lovely Naglers second-hand at a fraction of the price of what they cost over here.
Clear skies,

morpock

Hi Bill

If you are looking for an eyepiece try ebay.com or ebay.co.uk and do a search for telescope eyepiece. Meade and celestron sets often go at a very keen price.

Thanks, if the sky don't stay clear I will have a look.
Bill

Was out looking at Comet Macholz tonight and of course I inevitably turned to Saturn. The seeing was fantastic, best I've seen it in ages. Using a 12.5inch reflector at 457x mag you could drive a bus through the cassini division and I thought I could see a hint of the C ring too. Surfaces feature were obvious as were a lovely grouping of saturns moons.

Probably one of the best views of Saturn I remember in a long while!

Dave.