Posts Made By: William Paolini

Chris,

I'm going to give you my best value list. That is, what I consider best bang for the buck. So not the best and not the cheapest, but definitely I feel skewed more towards the better part of that spectrum.

High Power:
7mm,8mm,9mm BO Planetaries. Very sharp on-axis, great edge, comfy eye relief, 60deg afov, cheap at $99 new, $75 used. Just hard to beat. Plus since high power work is touchy with atmosphere, that's why I suggested just one mm apart from each other. If after using the 7mm your area can support higher mags, then can get the 5mm or 6mm to supplement, or try the TV 3-6mm Zoom instead, but that's expensive at $350+.

Mid Power:
13mm Hyperion or Stratus. Outer 30% of the fov is soft on these in f/5 scopes, but at f/10 they should be great. They have a nice 68deg afov and the 13mm Hyperion is sharper on-axis than the Nagler 12mmT4. So for f/10 and some economy, I'd go with the Stratus/Hyperion instead. They have great eye relief also - which is important.

20mm would be the next step from the 13mm for me. I'd say either the 19mm Panoptic or the 21mm Stratus/Hyperion again. These would be a conjecture for me. I have used neither. 20mm is a no-mans land for me. I jump from 15mm to 24mm for my fast scope. But in yours a 20mm makes sense as the next step down in power. The 13mm gives you around 150x, so the 20 will give you 100x. But in all truthfulness, you might want to skip the 20mm and just go to 24mm. In that case, the 24 Panoptic would be great. But at $300 a bit steep. So I'd opt for the 24mm TV Wide Field. You can find them used for around $130. They perform great in F/10 scopes!

Low Power Scanning:
IMO there just does not exist a good long focal length eyepiece in 1.25" format that has sufficiently big afov. So nothing in the 30mm-40mm range that's really great (i.e. over 65+ deg afov). But in 2" realm, the 40mm Paragon would be my choice here (I hate spending more than $250 for a single EP).

To Summarize:
7,8,9mm BO Planetaries ($300 Total New)
13 Stratus/Hyperions ($130 Total New)
21mm Stratus/Hyperion or 24mm TV Wide Field ($130 New/Used respectively)
40mm Paragon ($250 New)

So, 6 eyepieces, not 10. If your atmosphere lets you go higher power, then supplement the hi powers with more EPs.

If this is still too much money, then just get the set of 5 RKEs and an Ultima 2x barlow all for $300 and those will keep you happy for a year, then seel off on AMart and move up to more premium EPs.

Word of caution, I usually like to keep my range of EPs to have either a uniform AFOVs or gradually widening from smaller to larger as the powers go from higher to lower. So if you get the Nagler bug, be prepared to get several of them. Nothing is more irritating (for me), to have a range of EPs that I'm using for the evening and to have the AFOVs going all over the place. I prefer my observing to be more or less uniform with my AFOV. In the range I suggested above, the high powers are 60deg and the mid-low powers are 65-69deg. Also, some people just prefer keeping the family the same (i.e. brand). If that is your liking, then you could just get the range of Stratus or Hyperions (5mm, 8mm, 13mm, 21mm), then a Barlow to fill the gaps. Personal preferences play a big part in enjoying the eyepieces. For me, I prefer the AFOVs to be close or gradually increasing as the powers get lower, and once you use a long eye relief eyepiece (15-20mm) it's hard to go back to those requiring you to put your eyeball to the glass.

Good luck
-Bill

Is this true!! Happy Birthday...Many many more...and hope you get many celestial surprises and gifts for your special day and the year ahead!

I'd second the BO/TMB Planetary as a great choice. Maybe the 7mm (assuming the 20mm barlowed you have works well - otherwise the 9mm), then you could barlow it for 3.5mm which might be your practical limit for an 80mm (depoends on your fl).

Thanks Jon. Can you pls get it to stop raining in my area?

I have the XT10 as well and have never had an issue. Works great all the time and with a 15mm EP things always in the fov.

I always use Polaris as the 2nd alignment star. Usually Mizar as the 1st. Usually get Warps between .3 and .6. I have noticed it sometimes does not like Polaris as the 1st alignment star for some odd reason, so always use it as the 2nd as it's very convenient and always up there

Gary,

I have the XT10i and what I've found is:

Naglers - work well, coma starts around 20-25% from edge on the 12mmT4. Not bad though. On axis though not the sharpest EP. Barlows very well.

Hyperion - Sharper on-axis than Nagler, but coma starts around 30% from edge. So edge much less corrected than Nagler, especially extreme edge. However, for price comparison, I would choose these.

BO Planetary - Just excellent. Corrected to edge in my scope. Sharper on-axis than UO HD, Siebert Star Splitter & Ultra, Nagler, Radian, RKE. On-Edge they are just a hair less sharp than Pentax SMC Orthos.

If you can throw a Paracorr into your budget, that will solve all long FL EP coma issues. But if I had to do it all over again, I'd go with:

BO Planeray EP - 5, 7, 9

Hyperion - 13, 17, 21

Paragon - 40

2x Ultima

Paracorr

ps - 40mm Paragon really does not need Paracorr. The TMB Paragon is so sharp and flat field, I'm waiting for TMB's planned Ultrawide EPs that are supposed to be 90deg afov. If he does as good with these as the Paragon....holy cow!!!

I have both the 2.8 Klee and the Celestron Ultima 2x. The Ultima is better IMO, producing better imagery and more transparent than Klee (not that Klee is bad by any means, Ultima just better I feel).

But George is right about the higher powers. You need another EP with Saturn in the mix. I have the XT10 also and a few evenings ago had a 5mm barlowed with 2x and Saturn was incredible and just staring to soften at that power. So if seeing is good and you have a thorough cooldown and collimated, then the XT10 can push 60x/inch well. So yes, add the 8 Hyperion (or 7mm BO Planetary) and a good 2x (Ultima or Televue).

-Bill

Can you provide a link? Do you need to be a registered Yahoo account to view?

Jon Isaacs said:
So, right now somewhere out in the backroads of Africa is a Burion 100/6 along with a Polaris mount, a BW-Optik 30mm 80 degree and a selection of 1.25 inch eyepieces.

I'm sure it's observing some real wonders. A very good friend of mine is from Ghana. He visits his family there every 3 years. He always tries to get me to join. He says in the evening on coast that the water is alive, with the reflection of the Milky Way! Can you imagine a sky so dark that it is brightly reflected in the waters!

I know this is a bit more than the ones you listed...by $100, but it has advantages:

http://www.buytelescopes.com/product.asp?t=&pid=9702&m=

1. longer focal length so you don't have to buy more premium eyepieces to correct for coma in fast mirrors - this is a biggie as eyepieces can be expensive so this longer focal length lets you save money here. Also longer focal length better for higher power observing, like planets and moon, so can get higher magnification with a more comfortable longer focal length eyepiece.

2. a bit more aperture so able to bring in deep space objects a little better and open and globular clusters much better.

3. has an object locator so very easy to find things in sky whether newbie or experienced!

4. is a dobsonian so set up and using it is extremely intuitive.

All around a great chioce. If the $100 more is too much, then get the version without the object locator...but I wouldn't...it's fun having no effort to find things For me it's all about maximizing observing time and less time for fiddling finding stuff.

-Bill