Hi There - I'm Chris and I'm new around here and to the hobby.
I recently purchased the
8" Dobsonian from Bintel.
It has a 1200mm focal length (f/6).
I've had a bit of fun with it already and I'm looking to upgrade some of the eyepieces it came with. I'm a little stuck as to where I should go, how much I should spend, and what I should look for.
The scope came with the following:
9mm and 15mm Plossl (50 degrees field of view)
30mm 68 degree FOV "Superview"
These are $50 each on the Bintel website and I haven't been too disappointed by their quality, but the general consensus seems to be to avoid Plossls. I have had some OK views of Saturn with them so far, but it could be a little bigger to see some more detail, and this scope should be able to do more than the 133x that the 9mm eyepiece does for me. I've also had some interesting views of some deep sky objects like Omega Centauri and a few clusters.
First up, Barlow lenses. Bintel have options all the way from $59 to $449, and I'm really not sure what to look for with these or what is likely to constitute the price difference. I know that with a scope of this size, a 5x Barlow is probably useless with most eyepieces, so i'm looking at a 2 or 2.5. I'd be willing to spend extra for a 2" one with a 1.25" adapted, but it's not crucial. Are there any typically good recommendations? Are the base Bintel/GSO ones okay?
Secondly, for planetary views, what do you guys typically recommend? When initially shopping for a telescope, I was recommended to get a wide angle lens like
this, but if I spent the extra on something like
this instead, what extra am I getting? Or is there another better option? The price of the latter is fine, I'm just utterly confused as to what the extra money gives here - but I'd rather spend the extra now than get the cheap one and be forced into an upgrade later.
Thirdly, for deep sky objects, what should I look for? I understand that greater magnifications reduce contrast, so I probably want higher focal length pieces with greater fields of view. The 30mm I have seems pretty nice for these, but is there something else on the market that would round out my collection?
EDIT - Oh, and I don't wear glasses, so eye relief isn't that important to me. I don't struggle too much with the 9mm Plossl (6mm).
Thanks a lot for any advice.