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Eyepiece upgrades
Hi All,
Just joined today and looking for some help!
I am a relative newbie, recently bought a Skywatcher Heritage 130P f/5 Dob (bought for my 8 year old but having too much fun with it myself!) and looking to upgrade, or add to, the eyepieces that came with it (the generic Super 10mm and Super 25mm). I also bought a Celestron 2x Barlow and Celestron Omni 4mm Plossl within a few days of buying the scope.
I live in Sydney in an area with quite bad light pollution and little visible sky (about 45 deg in the East/South East) - trees and houses block most of the sky from my balcony. However, I've been fortunate enough to have Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, and the moon visible from my balcony late at night/early morning for the last few weeks and have made the most of it! So much so, that I'm wanting to improve things as best I can with eyepieces, while also planning for the future when I have a bigger scope and better view (and even just taking my 130P out into the middle of nowhere on occasion).
I wear glasses and have astigmatism but tend to take my glasses off whenever I look through an eyepiece. Short eye relief doesn't seem to bother me, yet. Using the 10mm with my Barlow, or just the 4mm (or even just the 10mm) I can see the bands and GRS on Jupiter, I can almost make out the Cassini division on Saturn and the moon is obviously full of detail (Mars has no surface features visible - desperately waiting for the opposition in July!). I've probably been blessed with good seeing over a few nights of the last few weeks.
Anyway, I have about $500 that I could potentially spend on upgrading my eyepieces and wanted some advice (I know I could put this money towards a better scope, but I just want to get the most from my 130P right now, while keeping an eye on the future).
I can't seem to find that many second-hand resources here in Oz, so am looking to buy new, unless something better is presented to me.
I have been advised previously on Cloudy Nights and StarGazersLounge, but as often is the case they are for ES, BST or Meade 5000 eps, which seem to be really difficult to get hold of in Oz. I have looked at importing (Agena), which would be fine if I'm saving a decent amount, and have also come across Extravision & Astroanarchy (these are in addition to the usual Bintel, Ozscopes etc etc).
I do wonder whether Celestron Luminos, Xcels, Baader Hyperions etc etc would be as good a bet as any of the popular brands in this price range in the US and Europe?
I was looking at TV Delites but they are expensive.
Given all the info above (happy to provide further details if required), what would you recommend?
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