Eyepeices, what to buy?

[Snorbak]

Afternoon all,

I am new to the hobby & I have recently recieved a 10" Skywatcher Dob for my birthday & need to get some good widefield eyepeices & a quality barlow.
I have done my research & whilst Teleview seem to be the benchmark, they are expensive.
How do the Explore Scientific 82 range or Orion Stratus range compare?
Given that my scope is F4.7 I will need a degree quality.

Thanx in advance

[AG Hybrid]

Well seeing that I have some of the ES 82's I'll comment on them.

Long and the short of it... they are marvellous eyepieces(for the price). Really good contrast. The 14mm is a particularly nice example as well. I'll use M47 for example. The Planetary nebula in the centre of that star cluster stands out very well at a even a moderately LP effected dark site. Using an OIII filter didn't really improve the image, it mainly just dimmed the star cluster around it. Still needed in the city though.

The build quality is excellent. I mean their completely airtight and water proof. Who else can boast that?

They have nice and soft roll up rubber eyecups. Eye relief is comfortable across the 6.7mm, 14mm and 30mm.
The 30 mm is especially comfortable. I've kept my face at that eyepiece for nearly an hour last night trying to spot galaxies in LP sydney skies. I didn't feel tired or strained at all. You can kind of just rest your face on it. Just frustrated at not having much luck ha-ha. The moon seriously didn't help.
Also, I have no problem at all seeing the entire field of view at once. You just gotta put your eye center, then start looking around. They arn't picky on eye placement either. Theres no kidney beaning or blackouts, at least that I've experienced. If you want you can look back a bit further from the eyepiece and move your head to look around as well to see the edge of the field of view. They have nice big lenses as well.

The 82 degrees of AFOV is very nice, especially since my dob doesn't have any tracking and I don't have to nudge the scope often.

They are well corrected. I've tested them down to f4.5 in 13.1 Inch Dob and I think mental4astro's 17.5 inch f4.5. In those scopes, the stars are pin point to about 85%. Which isn't bad considering I only plaid $99 AU each for the 6.7mm and the 14mm. At f4.9 which is what my scope is, the correction is good to about 90-95% for the 6.7mm and 14mm. I'll admit the correcti0on of the 30mm at f4.9 is probably best to about 80%. But, then I've looked through a 31T5 and at about F4.9 they are well correct to about 90%. But, they do cost twice as much.

Not going to say for a second they are as good as a Televue offering. But, generally speaking they are 1/3 the price.

With the money I saved I was able to buy a coma corrector. It helps pick up that 20% of field that needs the extra correction.

Not bad planetary eyepieces either. I've never seen an objectionable views. 82's are wonderful on the moon. Feels like your an apollo astronaut
flying around the moon. I love it.

The 30 mm does have a blue ring of fire on the extreme edge on really really bright objects. Like the moon. But, honestly I find the moon boring at only 50x. So I don't care.

All that being said. I am extremely satisfied with these eyepieces. Price/performance ratio is off the chart!. I'd recommend them to anyone not willing to spend the $$$ on the Televue offering.

[Suzy]

Hi Matt :welcome:
If you haven't already done so, take a look in the Eye Pieces forum and read some very helpful threads there.

You haven't mentioned what focal length you are after. :shrug:
Different focal lengths behave differently in fast scopes without a Parracor and for that very reason I do not own the same brand eye piece throughout my focal lengths. If you're not terrible fussed by edge performance, then that's great.

Regarding Naglers (I don't own one, but have been told this several times), if you wear glasses, forget them as the eye relief is very tight. Even though I don't wear glasses to observe, for comfort, I will only employ eye pieces with 20mm eye relief (aye! a rarity to find) across all my focal lengths, now finding one that does that and performs perfectly to the edge in a fast scope (mine is f/4.7) has always sent me walk about on long drawn out missions, but in the end I do manage to find what suits my needs beautifully. Even though it costs me a whole of money, I actually save money in the long run as I'm not buying junk eye pieces which I have to keep replacing because they don't perform as well as I'd like.

A good quality eye piece will give you great contrast that will help you resolve many DSO objects - vital for intense observations at the eye piece. Many moderate range eye pieces tend to be very bright making contrast to get some detail next to impossible. As an example, the difference between a Meade SWA5000 and a Pentax XW is jaw dropping on Jupiter - and even more amazing, I could see a ton more detail and colour at lower magnification with the XW10mm than I could with the SWA at 6.7mm. So there's a perfect example for you. The seeing was good, so higher mag. would not have impacted the use of this ep, and I do find 7mm is often doable before seeing conditions dictate.
But anyway, my point is, the better quality premium eye pieces will provide you with great quality. Meade, Baader, Celestron etc in my opinion would be moderate range eye pieces.
I guess it's just how fussy you want to be I suppose and how much money you are willing to part with.

Just making sure that you also know that the ES eye pieces are very very heavy on a dob. The 24mm ES weighs in at 940g!!!! And don't even think of barlowing it. On your 10" dob, that is likely to cause balance issues. Note however, that the weight varies throughout the focal lengths, so again, depends what you're after.

Meanwhile here is some reading for you on the ES.
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/3770468/Main/3748325

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=2190

http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=2481

I feel that this thread would have gotten more attention it were placed in the Eye Pieces Forum. :question: Meanwhile Matt, all the best in your search for your eyepieces. :)

[morls]

Hi Matt,

Both Adrian and Suzy have given some great info, and there's such a wealth of experience here on this forum you're sure to find the right answers...I just thought I'd mention my own experience with a premium eyepiece. I bought a 13mm Nagler for my 8" dob, and it's pretty much all I use, combined with a 2x barlow. I haven't looked through other premium eyepieces, so I can't compare it to other eyepieces, but all I can say is it's worth every cent I paid. The views are wonderful, the contrast is amazing and my whole observing experience has become so much richer.

I'm hoping to get a longer f/l eyepiece in the future, but at the moment I can quite happily spend a whole evening with just the one eyepiece + barlow. I don't know for sure, but I imagine any eyepiece of very good to excellent quality would provide a similar experience. One thing I do know is how much more I enjoy time at the telescope with one great eyepiece rather than 3 or 4 average to good ones.

Just my own (rather limited!) experience.....

Cheers

[AG Hybrid]

FYI Suzy, these thread and reviews are obsolete. The new generation ES 82's have a different design. Eg. the 24 mm N2 is over 200 grams lighter then the last generation. Even my big 30mm weighs just a few grams more then the old 24mm. Still not light but even with the coma corrector and the 30mm I don't have any balance issues since I use a skywatcher dob with the adjustable tension bearings. That being said a GSO dob wouldnt have any problems either. If you have adjustable tension bearings on your dob, it should be fine in an 8 inch.

[Suzy]

Adrian, thanks for supplying the information on the updated version and I apologise for the confusion Matt, regarding the weight.
I know the 100deg ES still sits at 900g and was surprised myself when I read that the 82 deg ones were the same weight as I did think they were lighter. Old thread info came back and bit me for the first time. :sadeyes: Anyway, it's a good thing you were onto it to make the correction.;)

[Snorbak]

To all who replied, thankyou.
& yes the thread was not in the right area, its my 1st post so you will need to forgive my error:)
It would seem I need to bite the bullet, so to speak & buy Televue or similar, hence my questioning the ES 82 degree range & EP weight needs to be considered.
My scope is a 10" truss dob @ F4.7 so from what I understand based on my limited knowledge, as a good starting point, I will need 1 low power EP of approx 26-28mm, 1 mid power EP around 15mm & 1 EP of approx 8mm.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Having looked at the televue EP's I am confused as to what range. Given the price tag of quality EP's I dont want to buy & be dissapointed.
I dont mind spending the money for quality, but there are limits.

Regards

[AG Hybrid]

~8mm-~15mm-~28mm is a good spread of magnifications. Although the 28mm is a little bit of polava as there arn't actually too many wide field eyepieces that are exactly 28 mm. William Optics 28mm UWAN comes to mind. I think theres a nagler 26mm and a panoptic 27mm.

If you want to know about televue products more check out http://www.televue.com/engine/TV3_page.asp?id=2 and do some reading of the ranges available. For televue, your premium deep sky viewing is the Panoptic - 68 degrees, Nagler - 82 degrees and Ethos 100 degrees ranges. Theres a big difference visually between the fields of view.

Panoptic's are spread between about ~16mm -42mm. They really excel in SCT due to their long focal lengths, exit puplies and the need for a very low powered eyepiece to get a large field of view. The Nagler range is the most comprehensive. It starts as low as 2mm and goes all the way to the mighty 31t5mm. If your planning on Naglers, have a read about them because the current range stretches across about 3 generations of eyepiece design, and not all of those designs may be to your liking. What comes to mind is the eye relief fluxtuations per design. Also the inbuilt 1.25 incha nd 2 inch adaptors. The ethos range stretches from 3.7mm (110 degrees about +$900) to 21mm. The ethos range is considered by most to be the best eyepieces in the world. But, a few pentax fans will argue that. Both the televue ethos and pentax xw series are extremely expensive. Some of them cost more then 8" and 10" telescopes - even some 12" telescopes as well. Personally Id rather use that money to buy an IPad2 and load up star charts and astronomy apps and take that into the field to help me find stuff instead ;)

If your willing to drop the cash for a Televue product you really should goto a star party or a local observing night and check out the fields of view of certain eyepieces in different telescopes to get a feel about what your comfortable viewing.

[morls]

One other thing, once I started thinking seriously about a good eyepiece I then discovered things like field stop ratios. The field stop helps determine the field of view, so is something you need to think about when building a collection. This thread might help a bit....
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=68036

[barx1963]

Just to cover an earlier point re Naglers and eye relief. I own a 13mm T6 Nag and use it all the time with glasses. The eye relief is listed as 12mm which is a little tight but once you get used to it can be done with glasses. The 27mm Panoptic has 19mm making it a really easy EP to use. I have the 24mm Pan and think its the best EP in my box.

[Snorbak]

Again, thank you all for the comments.

After spending more time than I probably should researching varoius EP's I have decided that Televue are the way to go.
Panoptic 27mm or 24mm, Nagler 13mm or 11mm & a Radian 8mm should cover a broad spectrum of viewing needs along with a barlow. The ES 82 range seem to be quite good however, as I have not been able to talk to many people who have used them relative to those that have used the Televue products, they have, for now, been scratched.
No offence "AG Hybrid"
Its dawning on me that I have taken up yet another expensive hobby/ passtime. I allready have some Prostar flockboard on the way & the std focuser (too much slop) is to be replaced with a moolight offering.

Regards,

[AG Hybrid]

No worries. Eyepieces are an intensly personal choice.

By the way. Radians are now discontinued. So better buy that 8mm quick smart if anyone still has them in stock.

[Jen]

Dam it i didnt end up getting that to stay in my box :rolleyes: :lol::lol:

Yes that 24mm Pan is a lovely eyepiece i gotta get myself one of those :P