Re: Eyepiece suggestions and help


"LeAnne Parker" <leanne@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Ic09g.131378$tc.23474@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My husband bought me an 8" Meade LX90 (secondhand) for my birthday. We
have been enjoying manually finding stars and planets in the sky and have
just recently tried using the GoTo computer to seek things out. Currently
we only have one 26mm eyepiece. This has been fine for getting familiar
with the scope and just general viewing but we are interested in obtaining
other eyepieces. For the first one (they will have to come one at a time
due to cost) we would like to find a nice one for viewing the planets.
Something to bring the planets in a bit. I am not sure how high a
magnification to look for. Right now I would guess a 7mm or so would
possibly be good but with how expensive eyepieces can be, I would prefer
to get a bit more input before forking out the money.

Can anyone suggest a good magnification (or range of magnification) to
look for and good brands to consider?


Hi LeAnne - valuable advice below at **!!

It depends on your budget and how much you think you'll use them. We have
had a 114mm Meade Newtonian for the last 5 years or so.
On a trip to USA in '01 we bought a 32mm Plossl , a 10mm Plossl and a 2x
barlow all for about £75 from Astronomy Warehouse in Las Vegas. Basically
this was our upgrade from the supplied 0".945 range to the 1".25 eyepiece
size. A little later on I managed to get a 6.7mm Plossl for about £25
locally from Loot.com

In terms of the ebay bundle, it doesn't seem too bad a deal. Meade/Celston
were selling similar packages at ~ £100 last year to 'new buyers', so there
are plenty of these bundles around. It doesn't make a £125 "buy it now" a
bad deal as you'll get a lot for your money overall.

** The most valuable advice I can give is
Have yuu searched for your local Astronomical Society? There will be a
group of people there (of variable social skills levels) who will have
things to sell and things to buy; more important there are people who will
be more than happy to show you how good 'their' eyepiece will be with your
'scope'.
Find out what evenings that meet and where, then make yourself known. An 8"
scope is quite respectable at any meet - and remember that the only thing
worth moving 'up' to is a 12"scope






.

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