I have a Baader Hyperion 8-24 zoom, do I need more?

[troypiggo]

I rarely do observing, usually the camera is on the end of my scope on the rare occasions I find the time in a busy life. My eyepiece collection was pretty sad - I had a York Optical quartz diagonal, a 2" York? 42mm eyepiece, and a 1.25" plossl 4mm or 4.5mm eyepiece. Decided to get a Baader Hyperion 8-24mm zoom to fill the gap and read it was not bad. Happy with that for the amount of use it will get.

Now that the Aussie dollar is doing stronger been wondering if it's worth getting a better quality planetary eyepiece, and/or maybe a better quality wider one.

At present my scopes are an ED80 refractor and a C8 SCT. I have a 1.25" 2.5x powermate too.

What do you recommend for someone who is just an occasional observer?

[Wavytone]

The 42mm and the zoom will cover the useful range of the 8"SCT, while the short plossl and the zoom cover the useful range of the small refractor, so you already have the possible range of focal lengths pretty much covered.

I think you are at the point where the next quantum leap is to sell all three eyepieces and replace with three, maybe four eyepieces that are higher quality, wide field ones, either LVW, Panoptic, Radian, Nagler or Ethos.

At the short end I think the plossl you have is too short for both of those scopes and you'd get more use from something around 6-9 mm.

At the long end the SCT can take the biggest widefield you could stuff into it, but the refractor will be maxxed out with a 30mm.

So to me that suggests a set of set comrpised of 7mm, 12-15mm, another 25-30mm and maybe keep the 42mm if that has a field of view as big as a 2" barrel allows.

[troypiggo]

Thanks mate. You're the master of eyepiece advice :)

Sounding to me that for the amount I use them, I would probably be smarter to just sit with what I have and spend the money elsewhere. Or save it.... err, who am I kidding. :)

[Prickly]

Hi Troy,

I have LVWs 3.5 8 22 and a televue 4.8mm - all very sharp. Plus I have a 16mm ortho which is very nice (small field of view though).

To be honest Im contemplating a baader hyperion zoom! To me they look an impressive high quality eyepiece and the feedback I've come across seems highly positive.

Why would I consider this? To be honest theres not a lot of difference in field of view between the baader zoom and LVWs and its nice having just one eyepiece rather than constantly swapping (casual looks and field nights). Also coupled to a powermate I really wonder whether I would be much worse off the LVW fixed focal length eyepieces with the powermates and you would have the flexibility of variable focal length for dialing in the optimal magnification on the night (note higher field of view is at higher power where you need it).

Have you tried the baader zoom and the powermate 2.5x on planets? What was you opinion? Are you getting good image quality.

Sorry to throw a spanner in the works.

Cheers
David

[troypiggo]

G'day Dave,

Haven't tried with the powermate. Must try that next time. Pretty much resolved to keeping the Hyperion zoom.