which eye piece for an 8 inch dob?

[stevoggo (Stephen)]

Hi all,

I understand there is an eyepiece forum, but I can't understand a lot of the jargon so i am posting in here, hope thats cool.

I have an 8 inch bintel Dob, purchased at Christmas, has two plossel eye pieces, Its all working fine and I am loving discovering the sky. of course i already want to upgrade my gear!
I borrowed a mates eyepiece the other night and the difference was amazing, i think it was 30mm, but it wasn't a plossel. It seemed clearer and had much less distortion near the edges. (He wasn't sure what type it was)

My question, what would be a good type of eyepiece to upgrade too? are there any that work better with large Newtonians, I am reading about naglers and Meades, but i am unsure if they are brand names or design types.

i have a very limited budget and am currently viewing happily, but i would like some info so if I ever stumble across a decent eyepiece in a pawn shop or on the trade forum here I can pounce!

Hope you can help you have provided amazing info to date.

cheers
Steve

[renormalised (Carl)]

Question....How much are you willing to pay for eyepieces??

Once we know that, we can let you know what to buy, or not to buy as the case may be.

Meade is a brand name, Naglers are named after a guy called Al Nagler who designed an optical system. They're made by Televue. They're parfocal, which means you can swap out EP's and they should stay in focus. There's also other EP manufacturers/sellers like Pentax, Orion, Vixen etc, that make various types of EP's.

All EP's will work with any scope, some are better than others, depending on the quality of the optics.

[Barrykgerdes]

Adding to what normalised says

The telescope you have probably has a focal length around 1.5 metres and the eyepieces I guess are 26mm and 9mm. Probably a cheaper brand.

The 26 mm eyepiece will give a field of view around 1 degree and the 9 mm around 25 arc minutes. These cheaper eyepieces tend to have much poorer focus as you view objects off the centre of the eyepiece.

The 26 mm eyepiece will give the most pleasant view of most sky objects because you will get more light into a smaller area. The 9mm is best for planetary viewing.

The 30mm your friend uses will give an even wider field of view than the 26mm and it obviously is of much better quality and probably has a much better focus across the viewed area.

Most telescopes of the type you have will give much better views when correctly collimated and used with high quality eyepieces. Spending surplus money on a the best 30 mm eyepiece you can afford is still the cheapest method of improving performance.

Until you understand more about eyepieces and how to check them I would advise against a S/H eyepiece that could be a bomb. Too many people have been caught before paying good money for this type of object that can often be bought cheaper from a registered dealer.

Barry

[stevoggo (Stephen)]

Hi,

thanks very much for those replies, that has cleared up my intial questions.
Barry what you have posted is almost exactly right! I have a 2" 26mm, and 15mm and 9mm at 1.25" They are all made by bintel.
The Aperture of the scope is 203 mm and the focal ratio is f5.9, the focal length is 1200mm. (It is properly collimated)

As for how much i am willing to pay its a bit of a catch 22 question, Ideally upto $100 dollars, but if you were to tell me they would be no better than what i have then I would be prepared to pay more. (eventually)

Again as mentioned, I pretty happy at the moment but i am fairly sure a good eyepiece will be my next purchase so i am trying to get knowldeged up.

Thanks again for your advice I have taken it onboard.

BTW I do tend to buy a lot of stuff secondhand (the scope for example) However, its good advice to not buy anything when I don't know what I am looking at!

Cheers
Steve

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by stevoggo

Hi,

thanks very much for those replies, that has cleared up my intial questions.
Barry what you have posted is almost exactly right! I have a 2" 26mm, and 15mm and 9mm at 1.25" They are all made by bintel.
The Aperture of the scope is 203 mm and the focal ratio is f5.9, the focal length is 1200mm. (It is properly collimated)

As for how much i am willing to pay its a bit of a catch 22 question, Ideally upto $100 dollars, but if you were to tell me they would be no better than what i have then I would be prepared to pay more. (eventually)

Again as mentioned, I pretty happy at the moment but i am fairly sure a good eyepiece will be my next purchase so i am trying to get knowldeged up.

Thanks again for your advice I have taken it onboard.

BTW I do tend to buy a lot of stuff secondhand (the scope for example) However, its good advice to not buy anything when I don't know what I am looking at!

Cheers
Steve

Save your money for now and use what you have...a significant upgrade will cost more than $100...in my opinion, it is not that beneficial to move to a midrange eyepiece and then upgrade again to the high end stuff...

Use your scope, get familiar with the nightsky and think about what you like/don't like about the gear you have...When circumstances permit, get together with other folks and try out their gear (most poeple are glad to share the view)...then and only then spend your money...In the meanwhile you might be surprised how quickly targeted savings adds up to a new (or good used) Teleview or Pentax...