Planetary Observing - Eyepieces

Hi,

I am in the process of selling my TAL reflector on Ebay, i.e. building the ad etc - if successful I will need to replace the 10 and 25mm plossls that came with it and will be sold with it. I got a 26mm plossl with the Meade LXD 75 8" reflector f/4 and recently bought a Moonfish Ultrawide - so would need just to replace the 10mm. Is there any advantage in buying 6 and 12mm plossls or 6 and 15mm plossls over just buying a 10mm plossl for planetary observing?

Neill

I'm no expert myself but from what I'm told you'd be better of buying a 12mm and a 2x barlow. That will leave you with the equivalent of 26, 13, 12 and 6mm eyepieces.

Steve's on the right track, but 13mm and 12mm effective focal lengths are too close together to be of much use. With an f/4 scope, you're also going to want some really short focal lengths for those nights when the seeing is good -- so I'd go with a higher-mag barlow.

A 15mm and a UO 2.8 Klee barlow would give you 26, 15, 9, 5.

Meade also has a 3x barlow, but it's only a doublet so the UO will have better color correction.

Better yet would be a 4x barlow and a 12mm Plossl (giving 26, 12, 7, 4), but the only thing I've seen at 4x is the TeleVue 2" Powermate, which is going to set you back some serious money.

-- Jeff.