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Old 26-05-2014, 09:48 PM
Wavytone
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Wavytone is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Killara, Sydney
Posts: 4,147
Close but no cigar.

Longest eyepiece focal length for your scope = telescope focal ratio x 6mm

Mid-power eyepiece focal length = telescope focal ratio x 2mm

Shortest useful focal ratio for your scope on most "good nights" = telescope focal ratio x 1 mm assuming the optics are good.

Absolute shortest you could ever use = telescope focal ratio x 0.7 mm, but only if the telescope is a really excellent optically (many aren't).

The latter might be useful about 1 night per year.

IMHO you could get by with just three eyepieces - low, medium and high power where medium is the geometric mean (not arithmetic mean) of low and high.

Alternatively 4 eyepieces, the focal lengths increasing at roughly at 1.5x from one to the next.
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