[davidpretorius]

Ok,

I have in my mind to get a very good high power ep. Straight of my tongue rolls "for planetary viewing" But i am now pulling myself up short!

My collimation is now as good as it has ever been
I am getting the cooling of my primary sorted out.

Given normal seeing conditions, how often am i really going to be able to do a great planetary eyepiece justice???

At the moment in my 10" x 1250fl newt, on good seeing nights i can see dark smudges on mars with my series 500 6.5mm and 12.5mm. I have even barlowed the 12.5 and the 6.5mm with a 2.4x and played around.

What other detail am i really going to be able to now see with a $400 eyepiece. Yes contrast will be better etc, but extra detail???

I am going to be continuing to image and hence "see" the detail thru the computer.

I really enjoy the views i get at the moment ie there are the rings of saturn, i might be able to make out the grs with jupiter next time, but i don't think i will sit there studying and trying to make out detail that is readily available from the imaging???

I think an eyepiece that can study ( and yes dave 47 tuc i mean to study) with a 7mm and 11mm the guts of a galaxy, or cluster is more useful. I can still use it for planets?

I know i must be talking myself round in circles, but it did occur to me after Dave47tuc talk about really looking for minutes and minutes at an object. I then thought, how often will anyone be able to study a planet given the advances of planetary imaging???

It is easy to say "planetary viewing", but given scope size, no tracking, seeing conditions, is it really something that it really out of reach???

The difference a great eyepiece makes on dso's is very noticeable, but is there that same jump with a great otho or plossl on a planet???