Recommended eye pieces and filters for the Celestron C8.

[M.]

Hi guys.

I'm a certain noob when it comes to eye pieces...

I'm not sure where to start, so many options.

I'm intending on using the telescope primarily for planetary viewing but I also want to stretch it out for deeper sky objects.

My interest is Saturn.

I don't have the scope yet as its being delivered but I'm looking to get the essentials on order.

What are the must haves without breaking the bank, I have £150 to spend at the moment.

Thanks for reading:)

[Daz Type-R]

The trouble with eye pieces is that they are very personal, what one person loves, another hates.

You also have to take into account, age, eye condition and do you want / need to wear glasses at the eye piece, if you need to wear glasses then an ep with decent eye relief is required.

The C8 I believe has a focal length of approximately 2000mm, so a 10mm ep will give you 200 X magnification, that is about as far as you want to go in this country, granted you can ramp up the mag but the chance to do do is few and far between. Depends on the sky conditions, stability ETC.

At that price, you may wish to look at some William Optics SWANS, approx £59 each, Celestron Xcels are regarded as being good and BST explorers are also a good cheaper alternative. You may want go look at at Baader Hyperion 8-24mm zoom, they go for about £175 these days, not great but by no means shabby and you get 8-24mm in one ep! Explorer Scientific are another good range but I would say go for the 82 degree FOV eps, but this ramps up the price.

Unfortunately Saturn is very low down, so will be viewed through a lot of atmosphere and will not get much higher for many years, the plus side though the rings are nicely placed.

If you can, get go a meet, try out somebody else's eps and see what you think.

Good luck.

[M.]

Thanks for your reply, I will look into these options.

Will I need a x2 barrow and is 1.25" fitting universal fit for my C8 model?

[M.]

*barlow

[M.]

I've been doing some reading up, so I'm that little bit more 'clued up' now.

I reckon I'm going to purchase an inexpensive set of eyepieces then I have some kind of benchmark when I put them against a more expensive counterpart eyepiece.

[Daz Type-R]

Just throwing this idea out there, that could be a false economy, while it will give you a bench mark for future ep's, you may find it difficult to shift a set of cheap eps, so you may be stuck with them.

Astro buy and sell could be a good place to start, you might be able to get a better quality of ep within your price range.

As for your Barlow question, again it depends, some love them, some hate them, the cheaper barlows are awefull in my opion as you are adding more glass into the light path which can degrade and dim the image you are trying to view.

You also have to be careful with the mag, a 10mm ep barlowed with a 2x Barlow effectively gives you a 5mm ep which would equate to 400x magnification, which will be practically useless in this country.

[philjay]

Hi Martin

I second what Daz says re eyepieces being to personal taste so to get yourself a couple or 3 plossl eyepieces to begin with, dont worry about a barlow at the moment. Your scope is F10 which will give you high magnifications with short focal length eyepieces so dont go for stuff under 10mm at the moment.

I would recommend the following to start you off

30mm, nice low mag with slightly wider field of view, these are handy for finding things. Yes you have a finder on the scope but as this scope is not computerised goto you will need all the help you can get in finding those small faint fuzzy things.

25mm. A mid range eyepiece giving plenty of field of view but with that bit of extra magnification, great on sweeping views of lunar in a C8

10mm for that extra magnification on lunar and planetary and the odd bright deep sky object.

A 12mm is also a nice in betweener with the 25-10.

One eyepiece that shouldnt be ignored is the 8-24mm zoom, this is very versatile and can replace several eyepieces but new they will take alot of your budget and they also tend to be restricted to 50-60 degree field of view. Well worth a look for second hand

As for makes and models dont spend a fortune on them at the moment, if you can try some out at a meeting of various types you will find the types that suit you and the scope.

As for barlows a x2 of decent quality sometime in the future wil be a good investment but not essential at the moment.

Filters, I recommend the Antares planetary set of filters, cheap enough, good quality and very useful for picking out detail on planets. As for DSO filters well these can be quite expensive unless you go second hand, even then some are quite pricey due to their speciality. I recommend a good light pollution filter/ contrast filter at sometime to help pick out faint nebula. Then when you get in to it put an O111 and H Beta filter on your wish list, these will liven things up a bit :-)

[Brantuk]

Eye piece kits tend to be a false economy, mostly dissatisfying (bordering on frustrating in my case lol), and a pain to get rid of cos nobody wants them. Divide the price by the number of pieces inside (taking into account any filters and the case itself) and you'll find you're spending no more than £10 per eyepiece - no better than supplied eyepieces and often worse.

 

£30-£60 gets a much better eyepiece than supplied or kit eyepieces. The Baader zoom is several steps up in quality and immensely superior. Look for good condition used eyepieces - most astronomers look after their kit. And work out the range of magnifications you want to use with your scope - bear in mind UK seeing conditions, on average, allow up to 200x.

 

As Darren says - not all folks get on with all pieces - even at the very expensive end of the market. So try before you buy - look for clarity, low or no internal reflection, coated lenses, no edge distortion, and width of view. Hope that helps.

 

Also check out this link: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/43171-eyepieces-the-very-least-you-need/

Edited June 14, 2015 by Brantuk

[tuckstar]

Try before you buy is the key to eyepieces. I tried the celestron x cell and although they are nice eyepieces I just couldn't get on with them. I found the baader hyperions (fixed focal length) worked best for my eyes and my pocket. About £100 each new but, as with most of my kit, they are second hand picked up for between £50 and £60.

Edited June 14, 2015 by tuckstar

[Doc]

Another vote for the Baader Hyperions, I used to have a full set, they work great in slow scopes, so F10 will be really good for these, but in fast scopes I didn't like them.

 

But they are well made and have a very solid feel about them and can be picked up for about £65 second hand.

 

I would get the 24mm, 17mm, and 10mm.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Doc

[Guest CodnorPaul]

I have a C8 and a Hyperion Zoom and only regularly use 10 - 16, which give brilliant views.  As said below 10 gives too much in this country, and when it goes to around 20 I find the field stop a little distracting so switch to 2" EPs then

[M.]

Wow, thanks guys.

I've certainly got a lot to learn, your advice is very much appreciated and taken onboard.

I think I'm going to look at 10mm + eyepieces for now.

I will let you know of my purchases.

[M.]

Ok, I've invested in a baader hyperion 10mm and looking to get similar quality 15 -17mm option, I ordered online from a local specialist store.