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1)Meade 5000 6.7mm 15mm eye relief with Orion Shorty Plus Barlow which should give me 447x magnification.
This will set me back $385 from Bintel
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The 6.7mm on its own (without the barlow) will be your most used eyepiece for the planets. As Steve said, it's very rare that the seeing will allow the type of magnifications you're going for. Most times you try it, you'll end up with a fuzzy out of focus ball and you won't see any fine detail on the planet.
Of course you want to be able to push the magnification when the seeing IS great on those rare nights, but usually you'll be around 200x or less.
You'll want a barlow for every focal length - so getting one of them is a must. The Orion Shorty Plus is a great choice - it's really the best of the middle priced range, after the Televue range.
I'm not a fan of the ED-2 series, as Pegster said, they're fussy about eye placement and I found that the 14mm I tried didn't perform well in my f/5 10" dob. They might be better at shorter focal lengths (
asimov likes them) but if you could try before you buy, that would be the best bet.
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Sky and Space megazine said 300x to 400x should be good viewing for mars when it peaks in late october... but I am worried that if I spend $385 and realise that I can't make use of the magnification that all that money would be down the drain... which option should I go for (or perhaps none of the above, you can see a better option) and why? pls help
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As I said above, 300x or higher will only be possible on nights of really good seeing. So don't spend a fortune going for that - spend you money on a good eyepiece to get you around 200x, and the barlow for nights of GREAT seeing. As I said, you'll use the barlow for your other eyepieces too.
So Option 1 looks like a good deal.
The Meade s5000 range don't appear to be quite as good as the s4000 range (at least in the Ultra Wides), but they're at a reasonable price and the plossls or super wides might be better than the 14mm ultra wide i've tried.