Which eyepiece for my Nexstar6?

[Azhure]

Hello,

I am a very newbie who is newly armed with a Celestron Nextar 6, which was supplied with a plossl 25mm eyepiece.

I am mainly interested at this point at viewing planets.

I am looking at getting a higher magnification eyepiece. Can you please let me know if I m on the right track by surmising the following-

(Nexstar 6 (apeture 150mm), Focal length 1500mm, Focal ratio 10)


If I was to buy the following, I would get the following magnification-
7mm eyepiece-214x
8mm eyepiece -187.5x

If I coupled this with a barlow, I would get better eye relief (yes? to barlow or not to barlow?)

a 16mm eyepiece with barlow would give 187.5x
a 14mm with barlow 214x
(I have read that you dont want to go too far past 200x...?)

I am lucky to be effected with pretty mulch zilch light pollution, I do not wear eye glasses, and I am looking at spending about $450 max.

In light of the above, I am looking at purchasing one the following
options:
(To use with Barlow)
Meade Series 5000 Ultra Wide Angle 14mm
Orion MegaView 16mm
Orion Edge On 16mm

(To use without barlow)
TeleVue 7mm Nagler Type 6

And these are the Barlows I m looking at-
Celestron Ultima 2x Barlow
TeleVue 2x Barlow
Celestron Omni 2x Barlow

Sorry if I ve gone into too much detail or this is covered elsewhere that I haven t found. Any recommendations or confirmation that I m at least on the right track would be much appreciated

[dannat (Daniel)]

i would get a 7mm orthoscopic -there are some japanese ones in icetrade for about 75, then spend on buying one of the nagler's in 11-16mm for general viewing - you don't really need wide fov for planets

[MJ_ (Matt)]

Its better to use a quality eyepiece then get something less and use a barlow. That Televue 7mm nagler will do nicely at 214x magnification and would be my recommendation over everything else listed.

[Greenswale (Wren)]

I wouldn't go above 10mm - I had a NexStar 6SE, and found a Hyperion 8mm (purchased with the telescope) too much, images were quite dull.

After mucking around a bit, I decided on quality and bought a 10mm XW Pentax - absolutely brilliant. Best thing is that the Pentax is a real 'keeper', working beautifully in any telescope. Apart from the brilliant optics, the wide view and long eye relief make for great viewing.

Planets interested me initially, but as time went on clusters and nebula also became of huge interest. That is when the wide view becomes important, particularly with a longish focal length telescope.

Before you go for higher magnification, it is way best to try eyepieces before you buy - this is standard advice, but really worth it.