Click here if you are having trouble logging into the forums
Privacy Policy |
Please read our Terms
of Service | Signup and
Troubleshooting FAQ | Problems? PM a Red or a Green Gu.... uh, User
jrbarnett
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 02/28/06
Posts: 2699
Loc: Petaluma, CA
|
Re: Best Eyepieces For $100 or Less
08/08/08 01:21 PM
|
|
|
One of the mistakes folks make when starting out (guilty as charged - I now have about 80 eyepieces assembled over thirty plus years) is to go eyepiece wild. The reality is, you can have awesome sessions with just two or three eyepieces. In fact, I rarely use more than 3 eyepieces during a session these days. I find that by limiting my eyepiece options, I spend more time observing rather than switching.
If you keep your eyepiece count down, then perhaps you can lift the price-per-eyepiece threshold. With the XT10i in my signature I use only two eyepieces - a 32mm 2" Baader Hyperion Aspheric and an 8mm Baader Hyperion. This gives me a large true field, low power finder eyepiece and a moderately high power eyepiece for close up views of DSOs and also works reasonably well for planets and double stars.
While I like Baader Hyperions, they are not even close to being up to snuff (especially in fast scopes) compared to Panoptics, Pentax XLs, Naglers or Vixen LVWs.
If you can swing the cost a bit fancier two eyepiece set, a set consisting of a 22mm and 8mm LVW would be absolutely awesome. I have 17mm, 13mm and 22mm Vixen LVWs and they are among my very favorite eyepieces in all kinds of scopes. They are better corrected in fast systems than the Hyperions, a bit better built, and a bit sharper. The Baader's, however, have a bit better throughput evidenced by the slightly brighter images at a given focal length. The Vixens sometimes can be had for under $200 new. I would gladly take two LVWs over any four $100 eyepieces.
Good luck, but remember - sometimes less is more when it comes to eyepiece collections.
Regards,
Jim
--------------------
"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries." - Carl Sagan
|
|
21 registered and 18 anonymous users are browsing this forum.
Moderator: Greg K., Jason B, csa/montana
|
Forum Permissions
You cannot start new topics
You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled
UBBCode is enabled
|
Rating:
Thread views: 658
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Flat
Edit
Reply
Quote
