I have a 50mm gso superview I picked up but I don't use it much. The optics are ok, not as good as the 20mm 1 1/4, but the eye relief is huge and I find myself seeing things beside the scope with my periferal vision. I would check out a few in person before I jumped in if I were you. Unless you just want some added weight in your eyepiece tray, like I have now.
And at the other end of the price spectrum, I have a 20mm t5 nagler that
work a treat in my 8" newt. The performance optically makes my 30mm GSO
SV stay in the ep box never to be used again, except for public demo's
Seeing that you're new to astronomy, you probably don't want to dive right in and spend $1000 on a 31mm Nagler or $700 on a 30mm Pentax XW.
First you need to understand when 2" eyepieces are of benefit over 1.25" ones. It is only at the wide true field of view end, i.e., at low powers, where 2" has anything on 1.25". Basically because at very low powers the barrel needs to be bigger to fit a larger portion of the focal plane. At the low power end I only know of expensive EPs that work really well in an 8" f/6, like the 30mm XW or the 31mm Nagler. But I think that in that scope the TFOV that 1.25" EPs like a 24mm Panoptic or 32mm Plossl give is quite generous already anyway so you don't have to have a 2" EP at all IMO. It's a lot more convenient also having all 1.25" EPs.
Best value DSO eyepiece around (and one of the best even cost aside) for an 8" f/6 dob is the 12mm Pentax XF. It hits the ideal 2mm exit pupil spot for seeing max detail on most DSOs. Nice wide FOV and great eye relief too. The 8.5mm XF is outstanding also. You can get them from Frontier Optics.
I have a 33mm Williams Optics SWAN. Great value for money at $169.
As for the range, I moved up from the GS 30mm superview which was great for its price but Naglers are out of my range and I would probably go for a Panoptic as I don't really like the ultra wide field of view.
Point is that you get what you pay for but try before you buy as one persons "best" is not necessarially your choice.
I've just recently got a myastroshop.com 2" ultrawide 30 mm eyepiece ($129) with 80 degree view which I'm pretty happy with, there's some distortion at the edge of the view, but it's good for about 80% of the area. Optics seem pretty decent for the price, haven't seen any internal reflections and it's nice and clear.
A wide angle 2" eyepiece like that gives you a fantastic feeling of being out there with the stars. it's also good for big nebula and for locating small objects which you can then swap to a smaller focal length eyepiece for.
$1000 eyepiece will obviously be a lot better, but for $129 it's good.
Whats the Best 2" eye piece to buy
