Stephen,
please remember that despite the fact that all what Alexander and Nick have said about choosing eyepieces is correct, you are still in the beginning of the journey and at that stage it could be difficult to digest and apply all that knowledge and therefore sometimes simple and dumb suggestion to "get this and that eyepiece" is exactly what you need. I still very grateful to people at CN forum for suggesting on buying Baader zoom eyepiece at the very beginning and before I read all these articles about how zooms are bad.
If I read all that I would never buy it and therefore I would spend lots of money right at the very beginning trying to find ideal eyepiece instead of just observing. Same here - you can start digesting all reviews, trying to understand all issues big boys are dealing with instead of just observing.
Let me provide an example from non-astronomy fields. Can you do 4WD driving on a stock Nissan X-Trail or Toyota RAV4 SUV? Of course you can. I did that for many years with no issues, knowing the capabilities and limitations of the car. However if you read 4WD forums then the suggestion would be "No, you cannot. Get a proper lifted 4WD." And then there could be explanation why. And it will be a proper and correct explanation, but you do not have that. You've got only a SUV and what to start. And the explanation is based on big boys needs. Not yours. So instead of saying "no, you cannot" there could be a suggestion - yes, you can do Stockton Beach sand driving or Lost City, but do not go to Monkey Gap. Or photography – can you make beautiful pictures with simple point and shot camera? Of course you can. If you read photo forums then the suggestion would be to buy a full frame camera and pro lenses with proper explanation why you need that. Yes, you do need that when you are doing that professionally, but not at the very beginning. I'm a pro photographer for quite a while (I've got business, profit etc.) but at the same time I understand the difficulties for the beginner. These are proper suggestions, but even reading all these articles will not save you from lots of frustration. Unfortunately it is a trial and error journey in any case. But you need to start with something.
So my dumb suggestion was based on a few facts:
- The suggested eyepieces are within the focal range you need.
- The suggested eyepieces are within the price you need.
- They both have long eye relief (18-20mm) in case you are wearing glasses.
- They are of light to moderate size and weight. Not like "hand grenade".
- ES68 24mm has generous field of view which means you won't be looking through a keyhole.
- They both have great image quality and perform quite well in fast Dob/Newts, not even counting slow scopes.
Hopefully that will delay some frustration on your eyepiece selection journey for some time and just gives you time to be prepared for the next round.