What is your eyepiece plan?

[AEAJR (Ed)]

Do you have a plan for your eyepiece collection or do you just buy at random?

If you have more than one scope do you buy for each scope or do you use the same set of eyepieces across all?

[Kunama]

I found that there were so many differing and often conflicting opinions on nearly every eyepiece that I wanted to see for myself .....

This resulted in me buying lots and lots of eyepieces, and also selling lots and lots of eyepieces, over the last several years.

In the end I realised I really did not need as many eyepieces as often suggested on the forums. I kept what I thought were the most suitable for my scopes, my usual seeing and usual targets.

For the 18" F5.58 I have a Paracorr II and just 4 eyepieces:
Nagler 31, Ethos 21, Ethos 13, Ethos 8

For the 5" F7.7, which is usually used with binoviewers @ effective focal length of either 1250mm or 2000mm (if the Tak TOA extender is also installed), I have 4 pairs of Nagler T6s and a pair of Panoptic 24s.

Occasionally the Ethos do get time in the 5" as well.....

[casstony]

Originally Posted by Kunama

This resulted in me buying lots and lots of eyepieces, and also selling lots and lots of eyepieces, over the last several years.

In the end I realised I really did not need as many eyepieces ..

That's been my experience over time too. I bought eyepieces used or on sale but now have a fairly modest collection: a Baader zoom, couple of ortho pairs for the binoviewer, a few longer focal length, long eye relief ES 68 degree eyepieces for deep sky, plus the odd plossl.

[LewisM]

I have 3 EP's and it's probably all I will want/need:

Tak LE7.5, Tak LE30 and a Vixen 8-24 Zoom.

[issdaol (Phil)]

Mine has been trial and error.....almost all of my Tak LE's have been purchased new......although not a wide AFOV they are nice and sharp.

My favourite has been the Tak LE50 although a low power EP it throws up this beautiful sharp bright view.....it gets used a lot across all my scopes. In the Mewlon 300 a full moon fill up the entire field with just a very tiny gap around the circumference and is a beautiful sharp image.

Tak LE30 is great for planetary......as are the other smaller LE's.

My next Favourites are Nagler 31, Nagler 22 and Nagler 17 for their wide AFOV on clusters and nebulas.

I have just taken delivery of the new Tak LE40 which after initial quick test views shows similar promise to the LE50

I can't ever see my self selling the Tak LE50, LE30 or the Naglers

I occasionally use my Delos' which are a nice alternative to the LE's

I have a Pentax XW10 and Masuyama 20 (original) that never get used which I occasionally think of selling off ......however I tend to hoard so they sit there for DR/Redundancy reasons

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Trial and error for me also.
I have found my preference is for eyepieces with around 20mm eye relief.

I particularly like the early Japanese Plossl ( Volcano Tops ) ... good glass and very nice coatings...but you need to find ones in very good condition to be worth while having.

Orion Orthoscopic, Vixen LV's and LVW's, early Meade and Celestron smooth side Plossl are my choice most times ... all give very crisp and sharp views ... the fov is smaller tho'.

RKE 28mm ( Edmund Optics ) are amazing for that ' port hole ' experience.

For Wide Views ...I have a couple of grenades .... 40mm Super Wide Angle Meade Smooth Side, and a Vixen 30mm LV ... both of which are 2" Barrel.

I do have a couple of ' modern day ' eyepieces .. Delos 10mm and a 14mm Morpheus.... both have huge glass and excellent eye relief and not to forget 2 x TV25mm Plossl.

For Zoom...my pick is the Vixen LV or the underrated Orion Zoom Eyepieces.

All my eyepieces get used between my Scopes one way or the other.

My favourite setup is using Baader Binos and the pair of TV25mm....terrific for general viewing and really comfortable.

For Planetary viewing, I only use my 339 f/15 ....spectacular on Saturn and Jupiter using 10mm and 14mm Oculars.

If I want to push the Scope , I'll use a Barlow.

Col...

[AEAJR (Ed)]

I have spent the last two years trying and buying and looking through other people’s eyepieces and barlows in a wide range of telescopes. Mine range from 50 mm to 203 mm aperture, 350 mm FL to 1900 mm FL across refractor, Newtonian and Mak. I have looked through but never owned an SCT.

I have acquired 21 eyepieces new, used or packaged with a scope. I have come to the following approach going forward.

• 1 or 2 low power wide field eyepieces (2" 30 to 40 mm/65 to 82 degree For 1.25", 32 mm Plossl )
• Zoom for the midrange - 24 to 8 mm (Zoom is my most used eyepiece in all of my telescopes)
• Barlowed zoom for the high range adding some single wide field eyepieces over time if the need is there.
  

Wide AFOV, over 60 degrees, are helpful in manual tracking scopes but may be a luxury in GoTo and motorized tracking scopes.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

I'd bought a lot of eyepieces over the years, many of them wonderful pieces of glass but I recently had a purge as I always seemed to reach for my case of Pentax. Regardless of which scope I grab, I've got 3.5mm up to 40, so there's one in there for anything. Easy

[issdaol (Phil)]

Originally Posted by AEAJR

I have spent the last two years trying and buying and looking through other people’s eyepieces and barlows in a wide range of telescopes. Mine range from 50 mm to 203 mm aperture, 350 mm FL to 1900 mm FL across refractor, Newtonian and Mak. I have looked through but never owned an SCT. I have come to the following approach going forward.

• 1 or 2 low power wide field eyepieces (2" 30 to 40 mm/65 to 82 degree For 1.25", 32 mm Plossl )
• Zoom for the midrange - 24 to 8 mm (Zoom is my most used eyepiece in all of my telescopes)
• Barlowed zoom for the high range adding some single wide field eyepieces over time if the need is there.
  

Wide AFOV, over 60 degrees, are helpful in manual tracking scopes but may be a luxury in GoTo and motorized tracking scopes.

I have to try out a few good quality zoom EP's the only one I looked through recently I was not overly enthused by but might be nice to have a good one

I don't think I would classify EP's over 60 degree as a "luxury" for GOTO/Tracking scopes.......

I would suggest they are equally suitable for both depending on the scope, targets and the views someone prefers

[Wavytone]

Originally Posted by AEAJR

Do you have a plan for your eyepiece collection ... ?

Yes.

1. A set that I can use across all my scopes (currently 3) being a Mak at f/15 and two refractors at f/6 and f/7.

Previously I had one set per scope but frankly its not necessary.

2. Stick to what fits in my TEC Turret ( 5 x 1.25") and one 2" low-power wide field eyepiece that fits all 3 scopes.

3. If I buy another, one has to go.

[jamespierce (James)]

I like most people here have had a bit of everything... Early on driven by cost, and also not really knowing what we wanted or needed.

Over time I've pretty well figured out you only need three eye pieces.

The widest field of view you can still get a reasonable exit pupil out of your telescope (bonus points for 82 or 100 degree eye pieces, more magnification = more contrast while retaining FOV)

You need something around the 2mm to 1.8mm of exit pupil scale - This will generally be your goto optimal eyepiece for most objects.

You need a sensible high power eyepiece being realistic that there are very very few nights in Australia where more that 200x is actually useful.

That's a long way of say I've sold everything and have that set for each of our telescopes... For my 16" it's 21mm, 13mm and 8mm Ethos. For our tiny 10 inch ... 24mm Panoptic, 13mm Nagler, 7mm Nagler.

Resist the urge to have lots and lots of eyepieces, get to know them and their fields of view etc. It makes finding things and identifying objects in comparison to charts etc much much easier.

[AEAJR (Ed)]

Originally Posted by issdaol

I have to try out a few good quality zoom EP's the only one I looked through recently I was not overly enthused by but might be nice to have a good one

I don't think I would classify EP's over 60 degree as a "luxury" for GOTO/Tracking scopes.......

I would suggest they are equally suitable for both depending on the scope, targets and the views someone prefers

There are a bunch of Zooms out there. I started with the Celestron zoom which is fine. It certainly showed me the value of a zoom eyepiece and it became my main eyepiece in my Plossl, Erfile and similar class eyepiece stage. As I moved more toward Explore Scientific and Meade 5000 82 degree eyepieces I researched better zooms.

The one that seems to come up over and over again among the quality eyepiece community is the Baader Hyperion 8-24 Mark III and now the newer Mark IV zoom. I picked up an older model and have to say I am very happy with it. It is now my main eyepiece for my Orion XT8i. Even the ES 82 8.8, which falls within the range, is seeing less use than before. And I really like it in my 2X 2" barlow.

Give the Baader Hyperion a try.

[Don Pensack]

My eyepiece plan is to avoid buying eyepieces.
I've owned 330 and currently have 19--8 for one scope and 11 for the other.
I don't need 19, but I can't bring myself to part with any of them.
I really only NEED 3 or 4 per scope to satisfy the requirements of viewing, but how can you resist the siren call of those shiny little pieces of glass?

Hi, I'm Don, and I'm an ocularholic.
Hi, Don!
Egads.

[gaseous (Patrick)]

Originally Posted by Don Pensack

I've owned 330

Holy bank balance Batman!