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I read so many eyepiece evaluations by people with small refractors, and discussions that hinge on how a particular eyepiece does in a small refractor on planetary viewing, or very widefield, ultra low power, sweeping.
But, having owned telescopes of 80-320mm and viewed through instruments up to 1.5m, it has always seemed to me that the larger the instrument, the more you see.
When I went from 6" to 8", I could see more deep sky objects, more details in them, and more planetary and lunar details than I could before. When I moved from an 8" to a 12.5", the same thing happened again--I could see more deep-sky objects, more details in them, and more lunar and planetary details than I could before.
I have owned over 350 different eyepieces and used about 100 more over the years, and I really like high-end eyepieces and what they bring to the observing experience. But never once, in 25 personal scopes, and all those eyepieces, has an eyepiece prevented me from seeing all that the scope could show. Seeing has. Transparency has. Darkness of sky has. My own experience has. And the aperture of the scope has. But no eyepiece has. Ever.
Some are sharper than others, yes. Some are better corrected at the edges than others, yes. But all have been adequately sharp in the center of the field to allow me to see what conditions and the aperture allow.
The point here is that people who invest big money in eyepieces, expecting to see more, are putting their funds in the wrong place. They should be looking at a larger aperture. A 10" will show you more than an 8" will. And an 8" will show you more than a 6" will.
I suppose we all top out at an aperture that is the most we can handle, and that will vary from person to person. That's OK. But with 8" apertures available for little more than pocket change these days, and they're all pretty small and light, really, why spend big dollars for tiny little scopes? And I say this as the owner of a 4" triplet apo scope that I use for low power views. But if I were forced to choose between my 12.5" and the 4", the 4" would go in a second because the ONLY thing it does better is to yield wider fields.
Not better views of the Moon or planets. It would only take a second to see the difference that aperture makes on those objects. Not star clusters, ALL of which are better in the larger aperture. Not nebulae, not galaxies, not even double stars.
One of the things I see among beginners is that they want to look at all the different objects--Moon, planets, everything. Yet they look at a cheap plastic 80mm refractor on a computerized mount when for nearly the same price they could have an 8" dob. There are two problems the beginner has--finding objects, and seeing objects. The 8" can help in both cases.
The 80mm? Not so much.
Then they buy the 80mm, and obsess about how another eyepiece may allow them to see something that is invisible in the eyepieces they own.
It just doesn't work that way. The 8" with cheap eyepieces will find and see more than the 80mm with the world's finest eyepieces.
So, if you enjoy eyepieces, buy whatever you want. But, use the largest scope you have to use them in. Unless you're content looking at the same 50 deep sky objects over and over again for the rest of your life, use the small scopes for imaging, and use the larger scopes for visual use.
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