whats the best scope for planets?

I guess that's too broad a brush. I guess I was thinking of something really cheap and nasty - certainly not the mainstream, respected and quality-driven manufacturers.Dave

Well, I wouldn't say no to a 6-inch Astro-Physics, Dave, if there's one going cheap! I'd be happy to put up with the smaller aperture.

:lol:

I live in hope! 3 years on the list and if recent posts are to go by, another 3 years to wait.... Or pay at least 50% over the odds ($12k).

Of course, when it does arrive, you'll be invited to the grand opening and have a peek

Cheers and thanks for the chuckle!

Dave

Hi,
As I am also in the market for good eyepieces for planetary viewing Iand based on your suggestions about the Radian eyepieces etc I had a look on the web to see what other information I could find, I came accross the following site:

www.belmontnc.4dw.net/optics.htm

It is very good and eyepieces are explained quite well, well for someone like myself who doesn't know much about them anyway. The guy actually recommends Orthscopic eyepieces for Planetary viewing and as they are quite cheap I thought I would have a look at where I could get them. I found the following site:

www.apogeeinc.com/product.asp?itemid=347&catid=44

I just wanted to check if anyone had any opinions on the eyepiece above?
Thanks,
keith

Those eyepieces look fine, just be a small bit wary of eyepieces with very little eye relief, ie the lens you look through been very small. I have a 6.4 mm meade s. plossel, optically a good eyepiece but I rarely if never use it, not because of the excessively high magnification, but because it is a complete pain to use due to its minimal eye relief.

I always felt that with a given set of good eyepieces, it was more important to concentrate on getting a scope with good optics thats suits the objects been looked at. Getting good eyepieces is pretty easy, been gaurenteed a optically excellent scope can be another matter.

Great Thanks, so would you recommend I buy maybe a 12mm or higher eyepiece and use a Barlow with it?
Thanks,
Keith

You would have better eyerelief using a 2x barlow on 12mm rather then using the 6mm, but then again, if you get a cheap barlow, it'll bring its own problems.
1, causes chromatic abberation, you'll get blue edges on the planets, not a disaster, just so long as you know about it.
2, Some barlows are not coated, so the lenses can reduce the amount of light more then expected.
3, some of the worst "ghosting"/internal refelctions I've seen were where I used a barlow.
4, with some barlows (at least in barlows I've used), any dirt on the lens of the barlow is clearly visible in the FOV of the eyepiece.

To explain this further, imagine if you have a scope with a speck of dust on the lens/mirror, when the image is focused on the moon or a planet or stars, that dust will not be visible when you focus the image. Dust on a barlow lens can be visible clearly in an eyepiece, just as if you were looking at it through a microscope, this can be a pain. Of course, this is remedied by keeping the lens dust and scratch free.

You never get something for nothing. :lol: