lens advice needed !!

[rb69]

Hello All

I just bought a Skywatcher 8" Dob today - and few hours back was on my terrace watching Saturn - it was in its majestic charm. I loved the view using a 25mm lens with Barlow 2X, although the 10mm lens that came with the scope was fine as well!

Question 1 - I think I need better lenses for sure, but not sure which ones to buy. 1st question is are there any specific lenses that fit this scope or any lens from any manufacturer will be fine?

Question 2 - What lenses are recommended and if I can find any boxed sets.

The xcope came along with a 2" adapter - can anyone tell me what for is this adapter and which lenses I should be looking for uisng this adapter!

Thx
Ramana

[programmer]

Hi Ramana and welcome

Your 2 eyepieces (not lenses) will probably be good enough for some time, at the very least a few months. Deciding on eyepieces is a big topic, as I've recently found out (do a thread search for 'choose eyepiece' or similar). Most experienced people, which I'm not, say that you only need a few eyepieces (low, medium and high power) and perhaps a good Barlow. There are many good articles on the subject in these forums and elsewhere.

Good luck

PS: Regarding your adapter.. there are mainly two sizes of eyepieces, 1.25inch and 2inch. Just stick with 1.25inch for now. 2" eyepieces will give wider views (larger field of view, or FOV).

[rmcpb (Rob)]

Welcome to IIS Ramana

As for your questions I will give my standard answer for beginners. Sit on your hands for a while till you have got a reasonable amount of observing time under your belt then consider what accessories to buy. If you jump into this too soon you will end up with a lot of expensive paperweights.

Cheers

[PCH (Paul)]

Hi Ramana,

... and welcome to IIS

I'd go with the others and say that once you've settled into the hobby a little, then would be a better time to start buying more. Believe me, you'll end up with all sorts of unwanted stuff if you don't play it a bit cool.

However, once you do start buying more EPs, I'd definitely recommend buying just a couple of really good quality (Televue for example) ones rather than a 'set' which may seem better value. Usually the sets contain stuff like filters which you'll use once probably, or EPs which you don't like because they don't have sufficent eye relief for example.

Just my two bob's worth

Cheers,

[rb69]

:-) Thanks all for a warm welcome.

First my answer to the welcome correction to my word 'lens' to be changed to EP by Programmer - Thank you, problem was I am into photogrpahy for last several years and lens has been part of my life ... will chage my terminology. Thanks for pointing it out.

In different threads in various forums people said that the EPs that came with the scope are not best for viewing and one needs to change (esp for the Telescope I have) - so was the question. I respect your responses and for sure will stick to the current ones for some time...


Thanks again all for your responses :-) will for sure after seeing immidiate responses I will put down more queries..

Cheers

[fraunhofer]

For lunar and planetary may I suggest Brandon. For deep-sky may I suggest TeleVue. Used sets of these can be found or you may want to get them new.