Which eyepiece to sell?

[areyouabus]

Hey all, getting back into astronomy after a 7 year break and planning on buying a cheap skywatcher 80/400 ($229) refractor as a second scope.
To fund it i am looking to sell one of my eyepiece from below.
Any thoughts on which would be most expendable?
I am thinking the 16mm nagler atm.

Thanks!

[MortonH]

That's a tough call - selling a premium eyepiece to buy a cheap scope.

But since the 13mm and 16mm Naglers are so close in focal length it probably makes sense to let one of them go.

[areyouabus]

Reason for cheap scope was to have a travel/widefield/land scope that my 4 year old son can also use next to his daddys big one!
(Maybe even use as finderscope too on the dob)
Would love an ed80 but price including mount is too much

[MortonH]

Makes sense. The 80mm short-tubes are great for kids. Why not place a wanted ad for one?

[Wavytone]

I'd be bolder. Sell them all while they're worth something, they're getting long in the tooth.

You really only need 3 eyepieces.

At the low and midrange theres a new range which are bargains IMHO - 15 and 30 mm APM UltraFlats which would do nicely in both the dob and a small refractor - note the field curvature of the refractor is opposite to that of the dob, and Naglers and Pans primarily suit dobs, so a flat field eyepiece is about as good a compromise as you could get to suit both scopes.

See http://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/eyepieces/58-74-wide-angle/apm-ultra-flat-eyepieces.html

Both the dob and an f/5 refractor would handle a 5mm eyepiece nicely too, either a cheapie from GSO or if theres cash left over one of these https://www.vixenoptics.com/Vixen-SSW-5mm-Ultra-Wide-Eyepiece-p/37122.htm

[Kunama]

+1 :thumbsup:
Pan24, N13T6 and XF8.5 would be a great trio of eyepieces
The Pan24 make the D21 superfluous
The N16T5 likewise is very close to the 13 which is superb and has a little more eye relief than the 16.
The XF8.5 is excellent!

Wavy, how many eyepieces do you currently own? :question::hi:

[Wavytone]

5, only because I have a turret that holds 5 and it gets unbalanced if I don't load it fully. Of those in practice I only use 3 - 25 SLV, 14SSW and 9 SLV. The 12 SLV is nowhere near as good as the 14SSW, and as for the 6 and 4 SLV's... they were to use with the 130 APO but now that's gone they're useless with the MK91.

One of these days I'll swap 4 SLVs for 2 APM Ultraflats.

There's a 20mm APM with crosshairs in the finder...

[Kunama]

I recently reduced my eyepiece holdings quite a bit by selling anything that wouldn't work in the TEC, or overlapped my Ethos holdings, but it only lasted a few days then a friend of Mr Takahashi sent a box to me containing several of his finest Abbes.... C'est la vie :shrug:

[areyouabus]

Thanks guys, i think i might just move the 16mm nagler and 21 mm denk.
Look for them in the classifieds soon.

[astro744]

I would keep the 16NT5 for use on a finder 'scope even the ST80 if you decide to use it for that purpose later. It will give you 25x and over 3 deg. field at over 3mm exit pupil in the ST80. I use one on my Stellarvue 80mm finder.

If you ever want the 16mm back it will likely cost you more to replace it. Meanwhile as you save for the ST80 keep sharing your current 'scope and the sky with your youngster to keep the interest.

[Don Pensack]

Sell the Denkmeier 21 and the 30mm GSO.
Neither is needed in that scope.

[LewisM]

And yet I keep thinning my Tak LE's to buy Parks GS's :)

[croweater]

Yeah Lewis a 10mm GS was my favourite eyepiece for many years until somehow it was attacked by mould. Excellent eyepiece. Cheers Richard.

[Aelk5579]

Definitely lee the 16NT5

[Wavytone]

Pauly flog all the premium eyepieces and you can afford a decent scope from the change - considerably larger than an 80mm achro. Forget refractors - aperture rules and from what those eyepieces should go for, you could easily buy an 8"-10" dob.

Buy 3 budget eyepieces (GSO or ProStar) to tide you over till you can afford 2 good ones.

OTA is first choice.
Mount second.
Choose eyepieces to suit the OTA, last.

And you may be surprised to find you do NOT need to spend stupid sums on ones from Takahashi/Nikon/Pentax/Denkmeier/Televue/Masuyama etc...

Refractors only make sense if you are intending to do photography or video astronomy, where the sensors are all geared to small fast refractors 500-1000mm focal length.