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Old 21-03-2008, 05:15 PM
Solanum
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Solanum is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Coromandel Valley
Posts: 359
Frosty, see above for accessories. Here's more comments on eyepieces.

As far as eyepieces go, you have the choice of several cheap eyepieces from 6-30 mm, or a couple of better eyepieces, say 12-15 and 20-25 together with a barlow. I personally prefer not using a Barlow, but if you can get better eyepieces by having fewer and using one, then do so.

A 2" 30-32mm eyepiece is nice for the "wow my head is in the stars" feel, and for finding faint things. But not much use for actually looking at stuff.

An 8 mm is more probably useful than a 6, but you'll want to get to about 6 (either with a 6 mm or barlowed 12mm eyepiece) for planetary viewing those nights of good seeing.

I use my 2nd hand 20mm TV Plossl more than any other eyepiece because I can see more detail in it than I can in my 14mm ED2 or dodgy 15mm GSO Plossl due to it's quality.

If I could have my time again: get the deluxe with 9 and 25 mm GSO Plossls, but see if they'll upgrade the focusser to 10:1 for less than the $100 difference in price then get a new/2nd hand Televue 15mm plossl. You will also want either a good 6 mm eyepice for those good nights I mentioned, or a 2x Barlow. If you can get a better one than the GSO one e.g. Orion shorty, TV Big Barlow etc. I would.

Finally, there is now no end to the accessories/eyepieces you can get, nor the money needed to buy them. I have certainly only scratched the surface myself....

Last edited by Solanum; 21-03-2008 at 05:16 PM. Reason: typo
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