First of all many thanks to 'Bird' as I was out to Murrumbateman last night and it was spectacular even just looking at the night sky with hardly any lights in the vicinity.. awesome!
Now that I have my 8" Reflector collimated, I'm ready to buy a higher magnification eyepiece.
I have the standard 10mm & 25mm that came with my Skywatcher but putting Bird's 6mm was even better again.
My question is that if I plan to look at the moon and planets to the best of my scope's (and my) ability what sort of eyepiece should I be looking at as I'm not too knowledgable in this area.. 6mm, 4mm, 3mm, barlow, 2" etc additionally will moon and coloured filters for the planets enhance my viewing experience.
Mark, it was good fun last night, you picked a nice night to come out :-)
Your mirror's FL is 1000mm, so the 6mm LV eyepiece we tried last night gives 166x magnification, good enough for nice views of the planets. later on you might think about adding a 4mm ep to get 250x, but you'll need good seeing to use that much magnification in your scope.
The LV range have good eye relief and quality, but they are a bit expensive. If you were only going to buy one eyepiece to add to your 25mm and 10mm then I'd say that's about the one you'd want.
another option that was brought to my attention, was to purchase a 2x barlow and use my 10mm then to later down the track invest in some Vixon's which are out of my budget at the current time
anyone had experience with the 2x barlow setup with a 10mm or the like?
Cannot recommend the baffled Orion Deluxe 1.25" barlow highly enough (better than anything else out there IME)! Combine with 12mm UO HD ortho for a comfy very high contrast planetary EP. Add barrel extension to barlow for still more power. You've got tracking I presume, so FOV is not a concern for planets.
hi jano, no tracking at this stage and after spending that money on the scope on a relative budget until I get to know my scope and the way around the sky a little better
For planets and the moon I use 125x and 160x on most nights. These would be my two most commonly used "higher" powers and I use more only when the seeing can take it.
