What is the best .965 eyepiece?
John Dilday
In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces of
long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
Any of you with opinions on this, please share them as well as your
favorite objects in these 60 and 80 mm long focal length scopes.
Rich Neuschaefer
Hi John,
The best way to help folks get most out of their "comet scopes"
is to have them find their local astronomy clubs and attend
star parties in their area. Or, get a few of your comet scope
friends together and have your own star parties.
Take a look at the Pentax and Takahashi brand of 0.965 eyepieces.
Or, your comet scope folks can get a 0.965 to 1.25" adapter, or
hybrid prism star diagonal, for their 0.965 telescopes.
Rich
Kevin Heider
John Dilday <jo...@bsa.net> wrote:
>In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
>other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces of
>long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
>
>Any of you with opinions on this, please share them as well as your
>favorite objects in these 60 and 80 mm long focal length scopes.
Hello John,
Go to www.oriontel.com.
Click on: Online catalog, Telescope accessories, Telescope eyepieces,
"Orion Explorer ][ Series". Only $30 and they work great. This
eyepiece made my dad's Tasco into an acceptable 50mm scope.
-- Kevin Heider
Harry Pulley
Kevin Heider wrote:
>
> John Dilday <jo...@bsa.net> wrote:
>
> >In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
> >other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces of
> >long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
> >
> >Any of you with opinions on this, please share them as well as your
> >favorite objects in these 60 and 80 mm long focal length scopes.
>
>
> Click on: Online catalog, Telescope accessories, Telescope eyepieces,
> "Orion Explorer ][ Series". Only $30 and they work great. This
> eyepiece made my dad's Tasco into an acceptable 50mm scope.
I don't think make them anymore, but the Celestron Kellner .965
eyepieces worked quite well on my Dad's 50mm f/12 Tasco. The Celestron
SMAs are probably pretty much the same design. I especially liked the
10mm on planets but you should grab a 25mm for wide field. I wouldn't
try any focal length longer than 25mm with a .965" pipe or you'll get a
very narrow field of view. See the June issue of Astronomy; it has a
good list of .965 eyepieces. The article says the Celestron .965's have
the largest apparent FOV (52 degrees).
I have since bought a .965/1.25" hybrid prism diagonal. It is amazing
how crisp an image I get using 1.25" Meade 3000 and 4000 eyepieces with
this little scope! I can push it to 188 power on doubles and the moon.
It isn't exactly a Pronto but with good eyepieces I consider this a
respectable portable scope.
As for favorite objects in this little scope, I like lots of stuff.
Many of the wider doubles with interesting colour contrasts look very
nice. Mizar, Alberio, Algeiba, Castor, Gamma Andromedae, and many
others are nice in a little scope.
The moon and many planets look quite good at 60-100x. I can see the red
spot and shadow transits on Jupiter near opposition. The polar caps of
Mars are visible in good years. The phase of Venus and Mercury are
observable. Saturn really needs more than 50mm of aperture to see more
than just a yellow ball and some rings.
For deep sky stuff, you might be surprised what you can see. Remember
that anything you can see in 10x50 binoculars will be magnified to a
reasonable size and should be a bit brighter in a 60mm scope and much
brighter in an 80mm scope. For planetaries, M27 is good and M57 is fun
to find in a small aperture. Globulars M13, M22, M71 and M92 are nice,
though unresolved in the 50mm Tasco. M11 also looks like a globular,
along with many of the other tight little open clusters. NGC457 is a
nice little open cluster. For emission nebulae, those with associated
star clusters are best: M8 is nice, M42 with the trapezium is good
though not nearly as impressive as in a large scope. For galaxies, M31,
M81 and M82 are good but I'd leave the tiny dim galaxies and nebulae
alone unless you want a real challenge (I found M74 and M77 to be
impossible).
I also do solar projection every clear day with the 50mm (but I use my
.965 huygens eyepieces for that).
Harry
Michael Bradshaw
On Sat, 2 May 1998, Rich Neuschaefer wrote:
> John Dilday wrote:
> > In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
> > other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces of
> > long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
> Or, your comet scope folks can get a 0.965 to 1.25" adapter, or
> hybrid prism star diagonal, for their 0.965 telescopes.
> Rich
I wonder if someone could work out a way to mount two matching scopes as
binocs?! Something like a 15x60 or 20x80? They would still be light
enough.
Mike Bradshaw
mbra...@shrike.depaul.edu
MikeCollins
On Fri, 01 May 1998 20:58:23 -0400, John Dilday <jo...@bsa.net> wrote:
>In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
>other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces of
>long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
>
>Any of you with opinions on this, please share them as well as your
>favorite objects in these 60 and 80 mm long focal length scopes.
Usually but not always, most astronomers move up to a bigger scope
with 1.25" eyepieces... so, if you get the .965 to 1.25 adapter and
buy some better eyepieces then when you upgrade you will be ready and
have not wasted the money on .965 eyepieces that you have to sell with
the scope...
mike
neuschaefer_rich@tandem.com (Rich Neuschaefer)
John Dilday wrote:
>>
>> In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
>> other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces
>of
>> long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
>>
>> Any of you with opinions on this, please share them as well as your
>> favorite objects in these 60 and 80 mm long focal length scopes.
Hi John,
The best way to help folks get most out of their "comet scopes"
is to have them find their local astronomy clubs and attend
star parties in their area. Or, get a few of your comet scope
friends together and have your own star parties.
Take a look at the Pentax and Takahashi brand of 0.965 eyepieces.
Robert
My 80mm gives me delightful views of these targets:
the Ring Nebula the "double double" in Lyra
the Lagoon Nebula the double star Alberio
the Orion Nebula the double cluster in Perseus
the central portion of star clouds in Sagittarius
the Andromeda galaxy the region surrounding Antares
the Dumbell Nebula dark sky sweeps of the Milky Way
M13 globular cluster (it sparkles) in general
Locating some objects might be frustrating with these telescopes
because the finders are too small. And people want to see something
neat right away. It's worth the trouble, though.
Robert
r...@netgate.net
In <Pine.GSO.3.95.980502...@shrike.depaul.edu>, Michael Bradshaw <mbra...@shrike.depaul.edu> writes:
>I wonder if someone could work out a way to mount two matching scopes as
>binocs?! Something like a 15x60 or 20x80?
Yup: Orion sells them. I didn't look that closely at them when I was in
the store, but they looked vaguely like two short-tube 80's side-by-side,
with Porro prisms.
>They would still be light
>enough.
To carry, yes. To hold, only if you're an Olympic-class arm-wrestler:
having the heavy glass w-a-a-y out there at the end of that long lever
makes a huge difference in the perceived weight.
I've been doing some thinking about this sort of arrangement, because
I got a good deal on some 60mm f3.5 (or so) achromats at a local surplus
store. Maybe I should start a new thread about it...
Ran
SSqui
>>other beginners scopes I am looking for good and great .965 eyepieces of
>>long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
I have found the Unitron orthos in 6mm, 5mm and 4mm to be very nice. The
entire range of Pentax orthos 5-25mm to be great and the 3.8mm Pentax XP to be
absolutely superb. For some reason the Japanese see no reason to move
completely into the 1.25" world. Only as much tube diameter as needed to get
the necessary FOV.
-
Stewart Squires
"Islands lie beyond the sun that I shall raise ere day is done" Bilbo's Last
Song, J.R.R. Tolkien
Clive Gibbons
I used to love my Tasco SR 4mm... for solar viewing, you could always see
groups of dark "sun spots", no matter where you looked... :)
--
Clive Gibbons
Technician, McMaster University,
School of Geography and Geology.
sreg...@dontspamme.erols.com
In <354A6FAF...@bsa.net>, John Dilday <jo...@bsa.net> writes:
>In my quest to help folks get the most out of their "comet scopes" and
>long focal length, large apparent field of view and long eye relief.
Celestron sells a .965 plossl. Orion's Sirius series isn't bad. A better
solution is to buy Orion's hybrid .965 to 1.25" adapter and purchase
the 1.25" eyepieces. This helps to make sure that if you ever want to
purchase a new telescope, the eyepieces will work on that telescope, too.
>Any of you with opinions on this, please share them as well as your
>favorite objects in these 60 and 80 mm long focal length scopes.
Jupiter and the Moon, as well as Alcor and Mizar were pretty cool.
Scott E. Regener
Mike Hosea
MikeCollins wrote:
> Usually but not always, most astronomers move up to a bigger scope
> with 1.25" eyepieces... so, if you get the .965 to 1.25 adapter and
> buy some better eyepieces then when you upgrade you will be ready and
> have not wasted the money on .965 eyepieces that you have to sell with
> the scope...
Yeah, but this works both ways. There aren't as many good 0.965" eps to
choose from, but if you manage to find some you like you can carry them
over to a bigger scope with the aid of an expanding bushing.
--
Mike