New eye pieces

[Sconesbie]

Hi again. I've currently got a 25mm wide eye, 10mm and 2x Barlow eye piece. So, the smaller the size the closer the view? Would it be worth getting a 5mm and any other recommendations for eye pieces for basic astronomy viewing?

[brian nordstrom]

:) Hi Scott , it will help a lot if you tell us what scope you have and what you enjoy looking at because different objects take higher magnification better than others , eg. the planets then there is field of view etc. etc. .
Brian.

[Sconesbie]

Hi Brian. It's a skywatcher sw450. 114mm diam I think. I like checking out planets lately (I'm only new at it) such as Jupiter and the moon. I'm yet to see Saturn or anything else at this stage. What other recommendations do you have? I'm open to all ideas. I want to be able to get the best that I can out if it that suits novice viewing.

[Sconesbie]

Stars too if I can but I'm not sure what I need.

[brian nordstrom]

Thanks , I see you already have a barlow , is it the one that came with the scope or an after market one ? because with the combo you have you basically already have a 5mm eyepiece , the 10mm and barlow give the equalivant of a 5mm so you have ,, 25mm , 12.5mm , 10mm and 5mm and that's a good spread of magnifications in my opinion .

One thing is your 114mm eyepiece a 900mm fl scope naturally ( tube about 800mm long ) of a shorter focal length ? whats written on the tube by the eyepiece and how long ( physically ) is the tube ?
Thanks .
Brian.

[Rob_K]

Scott, you'll find that a 20mm (or around) eyepiece (or about 45x magnification) will suit your purposes perfectly and you will do almost all of your deep sky viewing through that. I use the same scope and if you push the magnification your viewing quality will drop off very quickly.

You can 'zoom' in on bright stuff like the Moon and the bright planets but it would be rare to get a night where you could use a 5mm. In fact a 5mm is pushing the scope up towards its theoretical limits (225x). You can get some ugly, ugly views! Moon & bright planets look great through a 10mm or around if the seeing (atmospheric turbulence) allows.

If I were you I'd ditch the supplied eyepieces and buy a cheap 20mm plossl eyepiece from Andrews or Bintel. The eye relief will be much better (ie easier to see through) and it will give great views. The Barlow that you have is probably a long plastic tube (??) and pretty useless. The only other eyepiece you might need is something around the 10mm mark, or you could use a shorty 2x Barlow to get that from your 20mm. But a 10mm eyepiece might be cheaper than a Barlow.

It's common for people to think that observing is about magnification but it's not. Most things you look at are surprisingly large in a relative sense and observing is about light grasp. Small scopes are great as long as you acknowledge that their light grasp is limited - stick to low powers and make the very best use of the light grasp you have! Good luck! :thumbsup:

Cheers -

[Sconesbie]

It is a 900mm tube. The eye pieces came with the scope including the Barlow. It's is a longish one, yes. Are shorter ones better? I'll check the ones that you guys have advised. Appreciate the help.

[AstralTraveller]

Scott,

Eyepieces are discussed here regularly and ad nauseum ;). A bit of searching will go a long way. If you don't know how scope, eyepiece, magnification, field of view, exit pupil and eye relief are interrelated do a bit of searching. There are plenty of primers out there and it's not difficult to understand. After that you will be better able to figure out how to spend you hard-earned.