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Old 04-04-2018, 06:56 PM
meanster99 (Matthew Meaney)
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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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Old 04-04-2018, 07:11 PM
Wavytone
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Hi Matt, always good to see someone starting out.

First of all I’d suggest find an astro society that has observing nights near you and go along to see what others use, and if you ask nicely you should be able to try a few of theirs in your scope to see what you like or don’t like.

Not all eyepieces suit all telescopes and there is no such thing as a one size fits all “best” type of eyepiece for all telescopes.

That said, one type that is an excellent match for Newtonians is the Plossl eyepiece, they are easily acquired and should give good sharp images over a 50-55 degree field. Typically sold by Meade, Televue and others over 30 years there are thousands in circulation. Another “oldie but a goodie” are the Edmund RKE set, hard to find now, but originally designed for a small f/4 Newtonian.

For your scope a good set could be 5, 8, 15 and 25mm. A 4 or 3.5mm perhaps for nights with really good seeing on the planets and moon. Alternatively the Vixen 8-24mm zoom (there’s one on EBay for $150) and later on a 5mm or 4mm.

Some of the types you mention are best suited to Celestron SCTs, others (eg Vixen) are best suited to refractors, while Televue ones primarily suit large Dobsonians. In addition for some years there has been a bit of an arms race as to who can build the biggest, fattest and heaviest eyepiece for no other reason than that they are destined for use on 29” dobsonians. However very good ultra-wides don’t have to be the size of coke bottles, have green lettering nor weigh a kilo - for example Vixens SSW series.

Alternatives...

1. Look at www.andrewscom.com.au, in their optical section among other things there are several types of budget eyepieces, your budget would easily cover a set of 4 GSO 68 degree ones with change to spare.

Ditto www.myastroshop.com.au They still sell Vixen NPL (Plossl) eyepieces starting from $55, 8mm ... 40mm.

2. Keep an eye on the eyepiece section in IceTrades, and be ready to pounce. Plossls and sets do occasionally come up but often sell fast; you missed on three today.

3. Put an ad in the wanted section of IceTrades. Many of use have a few spares we could part with, self included, but can’t be bothered advertising.

4. As above pay attention to what’s for sale on www.astromart.com, it’s easy to buy reasonable eyepieces there, primarily look for sellers who have been there a long time and have a reputable history.

PS no need to cross-post here and on CloudyNights. The cloudynights standard answer to everything is a big dobsonian and a suitcase full of Televue Naglers or Ethos. Most there wouldn’t realise your whole scope weighs less than some of these eyepieces.

Last edited by Wavytone; 04-04-2018 at 10:16 PM.
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  #3  
Old 05-04-2018, 05:18 AM
ab1963 (Andrew)
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Hi Matthew
There is a 13mm Nagler for sale in the classifieds at the moment for $349 that would be a great start and with your Barlow you have a 6.5mm for planetary,he could even come down a bit if you asked him,At f5 you will need to buy quality as at f5 it will bring lesser eyepieces undone,Better to have 1 awesome eyepiece and the Nagler 13mm is than a case full that doesn’t measure up.
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Old 05-04-2018, 08:55 AM
casstony
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Welcome to IIS Matthew

I reckon you've probably got what you need for the moment, but if you want to buy higher quality, wider field eyepieces I'd suggest looking at the Explore Scientific 82 degree or Baader Morpheus eyepieces.

Keep in mind that your next scope may be double or triple the focal length of your current one.
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Old 05-04-2018, 12:43 PM
N1 (Mirko)
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Hi Matthew, keep an eye on how much weight or leverage you can/should/want to apply to the Heritage's focuser in the shape of an eyepiece.

That aside, I'm not sure replacing Plossls with better Plossls will give you the improvement you are after, so here's another vote for ES. The 8.8mm or 11mm 82° for the (approximate) 2mm exit pupil sweet spot perhaps, where contrast, sharpness, image brightness and power that can be had from a given scope appear best balanced for many, myself included. Power is similar to your existing 10mm, it may not even be that much sharper or contrastier, and eye relief won't be much greater either. But the view is much wider, and therein lies the improvement. I have both the 13 Nagler and 82°11, and the ES (bought from another IISer for a good price) really does deliver >90% of the Nagler's performance (f/6 dob), and that does take into account the slightly higher power. Edit: the 11mm ES has quite a bit more heft than the 13 Nagler. See above re weight in the focuser, same for this next one:

The ES 68°24 could be worthwhile for the low power end, it will stun under dark skies in particular and is unlikely to fail in too many other scopes. It will be a keeper especially if you want to stay with the 1.25" form factor later. Mine replaced the 24 Panoptic I used to have, and that was one great EP. Either of these 24s will give you the maximum true field of view possible with the Heritage's 1.25" focuser. So would a 32mm or 40mm 1.25" Plossl, but those would give too bright a background at f/5 under your skies to be much fun. The 28mm Edmund RKE is probably a bit too long for the same reasons, otherwise it's an absolute cracker.

High power - a 4mm Plossl sounds torturous but I can relate. If it's of decent quality it probably won't show you much less than significantly more expensive units. Had to look up the Omni - a 4mm Plossl with an eyecup . On paper, this suggests you'd have to be this guy to fully use its field Anyway if it works, it works. If not, your most likely improvement will be longer eye relief rather than better image quality, unless you want to spend big money. Perhaps an old Radian? If your PL's image isn't so great the only compromise I can think of would be a mid tier 4mm ortho seeing you are not deterred by short eye relief and/or small useable field.

Edit: Currently still available clones of the TMB Planetary also come to mind, but the quality is all over the place so you may get a lemon.

I'd buy used, right here on IIS whenever possible. Astromart is great too but they do charge a fee for the privilege. For new, I'd have zero apprehensions buying from Agena or OPT, excellent service. Buying local is great but if no Aussie is going to bring them in for you that Aussie might as well be you

Last edited by N1; 05-04-2018 at 01:16 PM.
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  #6  
Old 05-04-2018, 02:45 PM
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floyd_2 (Dean)
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If your scope isn't on a tracking mount, it becomes more important to have eyepieces with a larger FOV to reduce the manual tracking effort while you're at the eyepiece. I would probably be considering eyepieces in the 68-82 degree FOV range - second hand from IIS if possible. Another thing you could consider might be a filter. For a 130mm reflector, an OIII might be overkill for the aperture (although it suits my 127mm refractor just fine) but you might get away with a UHC to bring out some extra details of nebulae under the light polluted Sydney skies. I've just purchased a Baader Neodymium filter to try but haven't had a chance to test drive it as yet. Anyway, there are filter options that might be worth exploring too.
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Old 05-04-2018, 04:33 PM
Wavytone
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If you can wait a couple of months ... another alternative:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6...3#entry8498123

Plossls are ok from 10mm and above but below 10mm their eyerelief is painfully short.
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Old 05-04-2018, 08:22 PM
brian nordstrom (As avatar)
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Personally if I was you I would grab those 2 Plossl's in the classifieds , the 9 and 15mm GSO Bintel's for $40 and use them with the existing eyepieces you have Giving 9 , 10 , 15 and 25mm and with the Barlow 4.5 , 5 , 7.5 , 9 , 10 , 12.5 , 15 and 25mm's a very good spread of magnifications .

The 4mm you got will only be used on those 2-3 times a year nights when you can use very high power . On that a good GSO 32 or 40mm Plossl would round off a set that will last you years , well into your next telescope .

There is nothing wrong with what you have ( good scope with totally usable eyepieces ) and those 2 will compliment them very well , most of all enjoy what you have and don't worry about spending 2-400 $'s on 1 or 2 eyepieces at this time , as others have said Plossl's are great eyepieces . .

Oh yes to IIS .

Brian.

ps I have a 11 , 15 , 20 , 25 , 32 and 40mm set of TV Plossl's and a 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow all got from the classifieds here over time and find I use this set more than all my others , by a big margain .

Last edited by brian nordstrom; 05-04-2018 at 08:45 PM.
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  #9  
Old 06-04-2018, 01:46 PM
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floyd_2 (Dean)
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If FOV isn't a deciding factor, you could consider a zoom EP like the Baader Zoom MkIII or Mk IV and kill a few birds with one stone. I use the MkIII and love it. It's certainly a convenient EP to use and the views are excellent considering the spend. They come up for sale here from time to time.
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Old 06-04-2018, 06:59 PM
meanster99 (Matthew Meaney)
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Thanks to all of you for the comprehensive advice.

From various advice I've been given here and on CN (I've actually received some really great advice from current/past owners of my scope on there), and having a few extra days of visual observation of DSO's instead of just the moon and planets, I'm now starting to think I'd appreciate the wider FOV and longer ER of some of the other eps I've been recommended (in particular the ES68 24mm for wide-field and Meade 82º UWA 5.5mm for planets/high mag). I'm starting to realise the 4mm Celestron Omni plossl I have is 'uncomfortable' to say the least!

I've deliberately not rushed into buying anything, as much as it pains me to know I probably have another few days/weeks of little improvement (obviously excluding seeing conditions and darker skies) on the limited (but amazing!) objects I can see from my balcony currently (Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Omega Centuri, Jewel box cluster, Southern Plaiedes et al). I've even let the classifieds go by without grabbing a discounted Nagler...(should I have?!)

I've actually built a light shroud for my scope today, so hoping that provides a modicum of improvement, although rather stupidly, I mistakenly let the foam touch the primary mirror when I collapsed the scope and it's left marks/potential scratches on the outer edges of the mirror, so I'm hoping that hasn't cancelled out the benefits of the shroud! So annoying and one of those 'kick yourself' moments that is really hard to let go of, especially given the novelty of my scope (less than 4 months old). I've been furiously googling 'why I shouldn't clean my primary mirror due to scratches', to try to put a stop to the almost overwhelming desire to clean the mirror. Rookie mistake, I know, just hope the effect is almost indiscernible, as I'm led to believe from my searching. Would be sadly ironic if the shroud improvements are offset by the 'scratches' (I think/hope the foam has transferred something to the mirror, rather than actually removed the coating, but I'm not going to investigate further. Today at least! Is there an 'Alcoholics Anonymous' alternative for mirror condition OCD?!).

All that aside for the moment, I think I'd like to purchase a decent wide-field ep and one high mag one, both with good ER and wide FOV. As mentioned, I'd love to, easily, be able to purchase the ES and Meade described above. Does anyone have any sources for these, or if not, any analogous eps easily available in Aus? If higher-end eps in these focal ranges won't discernibly improve what I already have with my Super 25mm and Super 10mm, then please advise (although I find that hard to believe).

I know I should join a group and try out a few different eps, but currently, circumstances won't allow, so I'm having to do this somewhat 'blind', as it were. If there is anyone around Wollstonecraft/North Shore in Sydney that can lend me something, I'll gladly pop round!
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Old 06-04-2018, 07:21 PM
Wavytone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by meanster99 View Post
If there is anyone around Wollstonecraft/North Shore in Sydney that can lend me something, I'll gladly pop round!
Pay a visit to the NSAS observing night at Terrey Hills tomorrow night (7 April). Its a good site if the weather obliges.
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Old 06-04-2018, 07:29 PM
meanster99 (Matthew Meaney)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone View Post
Pay a visit to the NSAS observing night at Terrey Hills tomorrow night (7 April). Its a good site if the weather obliges.
Thanks for the location. I've lived in Oz for 5 years now (I'm an ex-Pom - like a Monty Python parrot?!), and I still think of a 30 min drive as 'miles away'. You can take the Pom out of England...
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Old 07-04-2018, 05:35 AM
astro744
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The Nagler T6, 13 & 9mm would take your viewing experience to a whole new level. These eyepieces along with a 24mm Panoptic are an excellent combination in any telescope.

The 9mm for example will fit the whole Moon in your 'scope at 72x and at the 13mm will show it very nicely at 50x with ample room to spare. The Pleiades will just fit into the field with the 13mm but this is where the 24mm Panoptic will show its worth. None are for eyeglass wearers but are very comfortable without with ample eye relief.

Note the 24mm has the largest true field in a 1.25" barrel, same as 32mm Plossl and 40mm Plossl but at a higher power and wider apparent field. It is best to try before you buy but the 24mm Panoptic is one of the most versatile low power eyepieces ever produced as it works very well in any telescope. Likewise for the 13mm Nagler for mid power use on your focal length 'scope and the 9mm for just a bit more power. Both Naglers can be Barlowed to give you 6.5mm and 4.5mm with a quality 2x Barlow. (Recommend Tele Vue if others don't work for you, stay away from the short type as they will vignette).

Yes they are expensive but they are lifetime eyepieces that can be used on any telescope. Bintel are the authorised Australian dealer for Tele Vue where you will get full warranty but of course they do appear on the used market from time to time.

Whatever you choose, enjoy!

Last edited by astro744; 07-04-2018 at 03:44 PM.
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Old 07-04-2018, 12:38 PM
casstony
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Originally Posted by meanster99 View Post
(in particular the ES68 24mm for wide-field and Meade 82º UWA 5.5mm for planets/high mag).
If you can't find those in Oz you can order them from B&H Photo in the US. They have cheaper prices and shipping options (DHL express) than some.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/E...4/N/4100994421
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Old 08-04-2018, 02:14 PM
bigjoe (JOSEPH)
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SAVE a bit more..All the Tak EPs Ive used are superb... Or TV 24mm Pan and 13mm Nagler, and use say a Vixen Apo Barlow.. will save you money in the long run, you can't go wrong.
Dual EDs top price versus performance..5mm outstanding!
Vixen NLVs or their Plossls excellent too... see Teleskop Service.
bigjoe.

Last edited by bigjoe; 08-04-2018 at 03:04 PM. Reason: Adding
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Old 10-04-2018, 03:34 PM
Baza (Barry)
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Tv ethos are fabulous but expensive.
have a look at eyepiece comparisons, then prowl the classified.
I have TV & ES being used in 10 & 16 inch dobs. Both are good, I like the wide field. Also have 3-6 zoom TV and while it is good, i think non zoom is better.

Best you can do is view through both before buying, a local astro club maybe. http://www.svenwienstein.de/HTML/es_...m_English.html
The cheapies that come with scopes won't provide the same views as either ES or TV.
Good luck.

Last edited by Baza; 11-04-2018 at 11:59 AM. Reason: added link
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Old 14-04-2018, 08:43 PM
meanster99 (Matthew Meaney)
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Thanks for all the great advice. I’ve recently been offered an 18mm and 11mm TV Delite at a reduced price to new. Do you think these would be good buys for my f5 heritage 130p?
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Old 15-04-2018, 06:49 AM
ab1963 (Andrew)
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The Nagler T6 13mm has pretty much the same fov as the 18.2 Delite in your scope but 50x mag in the Nagler and 36x mag in the Delite ,closer view in the Nagler same fov as the Delite so the contrast will be better in the Nagler,Darker background more pronounced stars ,The eye relief is tighter in the Nagler but has always felt comfortable whenever i have used them,No brainer and there is one in the classifieds for $300 posted.If you use your barlow with the Nagler against the 11mm Delite ,Again i do not think you will notice a difference and if you do it will be small in the fov between them but the Nagler 100x mag and the Delite 59x mag which will make the Nagler good for planetary.
In MHO until you know the direction you want to go as i stated earlier in the post the 13mm Nagler is the best way to go , Down the track you feel the Nagler is not for you sell it and you will just about get back what you paid for it ,My 2 cents worth
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Old 15-04-2018, 10:26 AM
Kunama
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As Andrew mentioned, the Nagler 13 is a good option. The eye relief is 12mm whereas the DeLites are 20mm. For me that ended up being the decider in going for the DeLite and Delos. I would suggest you try one to make sure you can take in the 82º field given the shorter eye relief.

I think spending $500 on a larger scope like an 8"F6 Dob will always give a bigger WoW factor than changing eyepieces.
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Old 15-04-2018, 10:45 AM
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JimsShed (Jim)
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When I started out a few years ago the first eyepiece I bought was a Baader Hyperion Zoom. Absolute best choice I could have made. I now have various Pentax XWs, Delos, and Ethos, and that Baader still gets regular use, eg last night viewing Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Highly recommended.
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