[khodd]

Although this is my first post I've been reading the forums for a few weeks now. This has been immensely useful and I've learnt heaps.

Like many others with a new scope I'm wondering what I can do to enhance its capabilities. Yet even though there have been volumes written on eyepieces I'm still confused about a few things.

I have what seems to be a fairly standard setup - an 8" Bintel dobsonian. It's 1200mm long which makes it about an F6, I think. I'm not sure whether this makes it "fast" or "slow", (or what these terms even mean for what appears to be a stationary object) but from many of the posts I've read this seems to make a big difference to EP selection. Is this just because the light gathering capacity limits magnification?

The eyepieces they gave me with the dob are a 2" GSO SP 26mm "Wide Field", which seems OK, and two 1.25" GSO Super Plossls at 9mm and 15mm. Since going out and looking at Saturn (sharp, but no cassini) and Jupiter (bands visible, but no red dot) I am stongly tempted to get a better EP for planets. My question is, do I go for a 5mm EP of some kind, or go for a longer focal length and use barlows for higher magnification? Most people seem to recommend putting a barlow or two in the kit so what's the point in having an EP at the limit of the scope's magnification?

Some of the posts seem to suggest that there are viewing advantages in using a barlow: are there any disadvantages? If you were to use an expensive wide field EP in a barlow would you still get a wide view? Can you use a 1.25" EP in a 2" barlow?

Cheers

Khodd