Hi Guys,
I know this has been done to death on here, and I've been reading heaps of posts and reviews on various eyepieces, but just have a couple of questions of my own.
More asking for advice I think, though I know it's hard for others to say what will suit my needs. Anyway, I'm in a position to buy one quality eye piece. It's for a 9 1/4" SCT. I have a barlow by the way, (though fairly cheap).
I guess I want something good for planets and lunar observing, but equally something for DSO as well....how many times have you heard that?? Most of my observing is done from the yard, so I guess you would say conditions are average as far as street lights and seeing goes.
Is the Pentax 10mm XW a good choice? The magnification would be 235x in my scope. I was also thinking the 14mm, (167x), but leaning towards the 10mm. I guess I'm asking which is the better all round piece? I could use a 9mm or 7mm UO for specialised Planetry views I suppose.
I guess I like the wider field of view the Pentax, to help see those DSO, (things such as the Orion Nebula and so on), plus they seem to have a very good reputation with regard to planetry observing too. I was thinking of coupling this with a couple of UO Abbe HD's. Maybe the 7mm and 18mm. Surely you can see some of the smaller DSO with these eye pieces, despite their smaller field of view? And I know their reputation for viewing planets is very good also. Is the 18mm HD very useful? Maybe in that size a wider field might be more useful too.
Any advice would be appreciated. I favour the 10mm Pentax, and 7mm & maybe 12 or 18mm UO HD, but still have thoughts about the 14mm Pentax, and 9mm & maybe 12 or 18mm UO HD. Or a variation of those. Or forget the HD's and just get both the 10mm and 14mm Pentax, but that is getting close to a $1000 for just 2 eye pieces.
Suppose someone is going to tell me the 13mm Nagler is better than the lot
I'm open to suggestions! Then of course there's the 22mm, 24mm or 27mm Panoptics. Does it ever end. Guess I want to sort out my high - medium power pices first.
I'm not really in a position to test any of them unfortunately, but having done plenty of reading, they all seem like excellent pieces.
Sorry for rehashing the same old subject, but any thoughts will be much appreciated.
Glen.