This week I purchased my first scope+mount, after years of dreaming and weeks of googling - I ended up with the Skywatcher ED80 and a HEQ5 mount.
My ultimate goal is to do AP (my wife is a photographer, so have access to heaps of gear already) and the concept and challenge of that excites (and scares) me.
I have started taking images of the moon, and they have turned out alright.
(The one uploaded is 10x 1/200, 200iso + 10 1/500, 200 iso stacked)
The scope comes with just a 28mm EP, so viewing anything except for the moon is basically a bright dot.
Just wanting to see what you guys and girls think the best barlow/EP to get would be to see things like Jupiter etc.
The ED80 is a 80mm/600mm scope, so 600/28=21.4x
A 6mm EP with a 2x barlow would give you 200x - thats about the limit for magnification yeh?
What magnification should I be going for?
Steve
Congrats on the scope. I cannot give you any help with the imaging side of things but on visual you will probably find a 6mm is pushing the power on a scope like that.
Aperture is the main factor in determining maximum power, you will see 50x per inch quoted but that is a theoretical maximum and even that gives (assume we approximate the scope as 3") 150x. Conditions are rarely that good that you can push that high and a more realistic figure is 20x per inch which gives 60x so a 10mm ep may be a good option, or thereabouts.
A good idea is to get to an observing night, if you are in Melbourne the ASV have regular sessions, mostly up at Heathcote, and I am involved in a camp at Snake Valley in March if you are interested. PM me if you want more details.
Sky objects come in a wide range of sizes, so different eyepieces give
the best views of different objects. A good idea would be the Seben
8-24mm zoom, which is great value for a modest outlay of around
$70. You could sample many different magnifications, and see which
stand alone eyepieces would be of the most benefit for the objects
that you view most.
raymo
Welcome to the forums, I myself got a scope for the family for Christmas and bought filters and a 2x Barlow. I have now put the Barlow in its box as I find I get better viewing through the stock 20mm or 10 mm. Now I am not saying from my limited experience the Barlow is no good, as when I used either the 10 or 20mm with the Barlow to look at Jupiter it was astounding to see the moons and banding.
The guys here have helped me out so much with finding and understanding stars etc so take on board the help
Also watch out as I went nearly 5 nights straight and had very little sleep because this is a great hobby. Take some photos and post your results as I am looking to get into the photographic side and will be watching for the tips and results you get.
Steve, FYI MPAS has a public viewing night tonight (and also the next two Friday nights) at The Briars in Mount Martha, which you are welcome to attend.
Plenty of friendly people who can offer assistance.
After January, the public nights are held on the first Friday of every month, rain, hail or stars.
Congrats on your purchase The 80ED is a great scope. I would personally recommend you buy EPs instead of a barlow, I've owned cheap ones to Televue-branded ones and are more hassle then they're worth. I used to own a 4mm or 6mm TMB Planetary, worked very well on the scope. I've also settled on the Orion Stratus EPs for general viewing, good value if you can find them second hand.
ShOrEbReAk - Tell me about it! Time goes so quick with setting up/packing up, finding and observing different objects and then trying to work out the best ways to photograph them. Thankfully, the moon is close!
Meru/ShOrEbReAk/Raymo/barx - Thanks for the info, so good!
I think I will go for the EPs first off, I think it is a good idea to get used to finding and focusing on objects, and soak in the awesomeness of them for awhile.
Red/barx - Thanks for the invites, I do hope to get out there eventually. I am a 100% beginner right now, so I prefer not to embarrass myself. Still getting used to trying to find objects through the finder instead of naked eye .. and getting the polar alignment with the mount working.
For example, the orion nebula. I can see where it should be with the naked eye, but then looking finder scope adds extra stars and it's too confusing!
I also haven't been able to get the polar alignment/goto working as yet either. The manual was tough work, and no knowledge to getting it working is tricky.
Also, the full full moon is tonight, hopefully the clouds stay away and I can get some more photos in. It is very cool to see the different colours the moon appears on camera when changing the shutter speed. 1/200 = bright white, 1/500 = dark grey. Amazing!
Steve, with your scope the shortest useful eyepiece will be 5mm, giving 120X. This will show the rings of saturn and jupiter will be recognisable with some bands visible...
Pushing it beyond that with a Barlow is certainly possible and the image will be larger, dimmer, softer and you won't really see any more detail.
Thanks wavy, I will hopefully be getting a new EP in the next week. If I was able to see saturn/jupiter as you say, it would be pretty amazing.
And for shore, I have added a pic of the full moon from tonight, as well as a comp of the three phases I have photographed this week.
The full moon was so bright, it was hard to get great detail/colour, but its ok for a first attempt I guess.
The 80ED is a great scope. I would personally recommend you buy EPs instead of a barlow, I've owned cheap ones to Televue-branded ones and are more hassle then they're worth. I used to own a 4mm or 6mm TMB Planetary, worked very well on the scope. I've also settled on the Orion Stratus EPs for general viewing, good value if you can find them second hand. 
