Hi all,

I'm completely new to hobby, except Bresser 70/700 from Lidl I bought for kids. Recently I put my hands on 6" 150/750 Celestron with 20mm plossl only, and, oh boy, what a difference.

SHORT STORY
I need better eyepieces. Something around 6-10mm and something around 24-32mm. Few budget levels: 100, 200, 300.

LONG STORY
As this is Newtonian I do think it will be best for wide views. I do enjoy looking at Pleiades, Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy. But with Bresser I did enjoy looking at Jupiter and Saturn too.

I'm on market looking for better eyepiece(s). I spend last 2 weeks of reading about all ranges of eyepieces and I think I do briefly know what I'm looking for. Actually what I mean is I do not know what my hobby will develop to, so I want to try everything. Kind of now I thought 10mm Hyperion, and 24mm 68 Explore Scientific. That's on expensive side. Or Celestron X-Cel 24mm and Orion 8mm EF in the middle, or maybe go cheap with few Plossl (32, 15, 8, 5)?

Kind of obvious choice for new person will be Zoom, that I didn't include in my wish list, beacuse I do want to experience wide filed of view. Second obvious will be Plossl, be eye relief, especially for large magnification, could be a problem, also my wife wears glasses, and she will want to use it as well. Expensive choice is somehow tempting, but is it worth spending 300 on eyepieces for 100 scope? So maybe compromise and go with Celestron and Orion? What will I loose?

Welcome to the confusing world of astronomy.  You are asking questions that in the past we have all asked, and are still asking.
The Baader Hyperions are a very good set of eyepieces offering 68 degree field of view, a nice wide view, one thing to look out for is the eye relief offered by an eyepiece.  The lower the eye relief the more it feels like looking through a pin hole, larger eye relief feels like looking through a window.  If your wife wants to observe while wearing spectacles, then long eye relief is essential, the Hyperions offer 20mm of eye relief.
One set you might consider are the BST Starguider eyepieces, they are a reasonable price, have a good 60 degree field of view and 16mm eye relief and get favourable reviews.  See here:
www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces.html
I have a Baader zoom 8-24mm, bizarrely at 24mm the field of view is only 50 degrees at 8mm it is 68 degrees, it would be better the other way around.  Anyway, it is a very good eyepiece, but I only use it for observing the sun and moon.
What part of the country are you in?  There are a number of very good astronomy clubs around and people get together regularly to observe, we are always willing to let anyone try out a piece of equipment.

Paul

Welcome to the forum!

To echo Paul's sound advice, eye relief is a game changer, especially when observing the Moon and planets.

When I got my first scope (f/8 150mm Newtonian Reflector on a Dobsonain Base) it came with two Plossl eyepieces. The 25mm was fine and I still use it to this day, but the10mm was useless. As it had 6.5mm eye relief, Jupiter and Saturn would shoot across the eyepiece. Trying to track the planets and craters on the Moon manually was a headache.

It was for this reason that I bought Orion's 6mm and 9mm Expanse eyepieces. Not only do they provide a 66° AFOV, but they also provide 15mm of eye relief. Each eyepiece was €50. When I observe the Moon, and planets the 9mm is always used, and the 6mm most of the time. 

So, whatever eyepiece you buy look for an eye relief of 15mm or above. 

Best of luck with the hobby!

Darren,



 

Hi,
Where are my manners. I should introduce myself first. My name is Marcin and I'm from Balbriggan. I saw on FB there is observatory in Balbrigan, but I'm not sure it is still operational.

Paul
I was reading about those BST. Thanks for tip. Common sense is telling me to actually take your advise and meet with other people and try out their equipment, but I think I will give it a go and try one or two pieces.

Darren
Yes I did came to the same conclusion. 60+ AFOV and 15+ ER. I will give a try to ones Paul proposed, and with good whether I hope I can come back with mu opinion

Marcin

Hi Marvin

Don't get hung up on high magnification, you will not use a 5mm eyepiece too often as the object you are viewing will quickly zip through the field of view.
Four eyepieces as a good set would be something like 32mm, 18mm, 11mm and 8mm, or focal lengths something similar.

Paul

You should also consider a barlow lens.  This will half the focal length of your eyepiece (or, if you prefer, double the focal length of your scope). Therefore, a 20mm eyepiece will function as a 10mm, or a 16mm will function as an 8mm etc etc.
You need to think about what you want to do with the scope. Most beginners usually say they want to see the planets and the Moon, and that is fair enough. But, you will soon want to move on to other objects, like star clusters, nebulae, galaxies etc.
As Paul advised, do not worry too much about high magnification, you will only use it on rare occasions. It is reckoned that 200x is about the highest magnification viable on most nights in Ireland, so keep this in mind. Since you already have a 20mm eyepiece, I would go for something in the 14-16mm range. Buy the best you can afford, as, the chances are, if you really get into the hobby, you will eventually replace your scope, so you might as well buy a half decent eyepiece. You don't have to spend a lot of money on these, although be warned,  lot of equipment is unavailable at the moment, so, if you see something you fancy, you may need to look around in order to get it.
By buying a 14mm eyepiece, and a 2x barlow, you would have focal lengths of 20mm, 14mm, 10mm and 7mm, more than enough to be getting on with
Also, as long as your wife does not use her glasses to correct astigmatism, she should be able to bring the scope to focus without wearing her glasses

This also popped into my head when I started to read about eyepieces. Some says barlow is creation of devil, and it is much better to stuck with proper eyepieces, but I did use 1,5x barlow on my crappy Bresser and I was happy with results.

Anyhow I took my chances and I did order 5,8,18 with 2x barlow. 5 will give me 150x and I just hope with 60° I will be able to track Jupiter for long enough. 8 probably will be used to watch Moon, and I do want to compare 18/60° with my 20/52° just to see difference with eye relief.

If I will be happy with what I can see I think I will invest bit more and I will hunt down 24/68° Explore Scientific. In worst case scenario few eyepieces will popup on local market.

BTW: Do you think red dot finder is good idea? So far I didn't have issues with finding things like Andromeda, or Orion Nebula with my current finder, and eyes. It took some time alright, but not more than 5 min.

A red dot finder is a very useful piece of kit, but, for many people, a Telrad is even better. Very easy to use, and you can find Telrad finder charts on the internet to help you to locate objects.
Again, you may need to look around to acually find one, First Light Optics on the link below are out of stock at the moment

www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/telrad-finder-astronomy.html

BTW, Rother Valley may have the 24mm Explore

www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/explore-sci...urged-eyepieces.html

Yes, I did took a look on Telrad, and Rigel. It is something I'm thinking about. I want to try cheap red dot finder first. Good news is I received eyepieces 2 days ago. I even found 24mm Explore from Poland on Teleskopy.pl . Unfortunately sky is not too kind. I need to wait till weather will be better. In meantime I did print some parts like Behtinov mask, solar filter, camera and phone holder so I'm ready

I did also reassemble my CG4 mount to remove some backslash on both axis. I saw that lube there is pretty stiff and black. I didn't want to replace it with some of mine bike or 3D printer spray/greases, as I read it needs to be kind of specific one. Not to stiff not to leaky. Any advise?

Hi there

This is a product that is recommended in many forums.
superlube.ie/product/multi-purpose-synthetic-grease-nlgi-2/

Paul

Thanks Paul. Ordered.

I was lucky yesterday. Something woke me up at 1AM and when I took my glass of water I saw the sky was clear. It was like that only for 1h, but I was able to test my eyepieces and 2x barlow. And I'm happy as hell. I'm still waiting for 24mm Explore, but BST pieces are very good. Thanks Paul for recommending it. Darren, you were right eye relief and 60° did make a huge change. Picture quality, at least in my eyes, is the same as in my 20mm Plossl, but the comfort of watching stars is way better. BST was much more forgiving when you move your eye slightly, and only that made the whole experience much more enjoyable.

Anyhow, thanks guys for help and advice, and expect more questions soon.

Hi Marcin, 

I was delighted to read that you had a much more enjoyable observing session with your new eyepieces this morning. 

In saying that, it would seem that you're to blame for all the bad weather... 

Clear skies - well not until you stop buying new equipment 

That's right, Darren.
A full 6 weeks before our skies clear. 
It has been a full week and a half since I had a good observing session. 
So another 4 and a half weeks before we have a clear night again. 
Met Eireann are saying we won't have a single clear night next week at all. 

Very best regards from Aubrey. 

 

Oh my! It's shocking alright. I can't wait until we're back at the Sugar Loaf as I'm keen to observe some planets. 

​​​​​Let's hope December prices better than October and November. 

Kindest regards, 

Darren. 
 

The last night we were under country skies was for the Perseids, and that was three months ago.

"In saying that, it would seem that you're to blame for all the bad weather... "

I didn't know there is some rule for that. But, yeah, that make sense. Like with any other hobby

Anyhow last night wasn't bad at all. Beautiful view of Jupiter, Saturn and Moon. I need to work a little bit on my camera holder. Is not sturdy enough. With my phone holder I can use only my Plossl bit.