lenses

hi jus joined,i have a firstscope 80 EQ celestron , can i enhance my viewing by using diffrent eyepeices,at present i hav 10mm and 20mm eyeset came with the scope.

hi jus joined,i have a firstscope 80 EQ celestron , can i enhance my viewing by using diffrent eyepeices,at present i hav 10mm and 20mm eyeset came with the scope.

Certainly. Depending on the quality of eye-pieces that came with your scope simply buying high quality eye-pieces with the same focal length (10 and 20mm in this case) could greatly increase the quality of your view. I've seen some scopes come with really poor plastic eye-pieces and the difference a good quality eye-piece made was astounding.

By getting more eye-pieces you can also increase the range of magnifications available to you. If you want lower magnifications (and a wider field of view) get ones with a longer focal length, if you want higher magnification (if your scope is up to it, on a 80mm scope 80x is optimal) you get shorter focal lenghts.

In Astro2 we bought a box-set of good Celestron eye-pieces that range from 40mm down to 4.6mm, that gives us a great range of magnifications. Also, some of the most stunning views come from the 40mm eye-piece rather than the higher magnification ones.

Bart.

Welcome to the boards!
How long have you been into astronomy?

The Celestron EQ80 is a good starter scope.
I would'nt get too worried about buying more eyepieces just yet though.
The 20mm & 10mm should afford you good views and to be honest,
higher mag. dosen't mean it will enhance your viewing.
(what areas are you interested in?)

I just bought my first (proper) scope this summer.
I have a good range of eyepieces and a 2xbarlow
but more often than not I use my 26mm!
You just can't beat the views especially of clusters in that eyepiece.

im not sure of the quality of my lenses,and im new to astronomy well in regards to having a scope iam, so focal length stuff im not sure of,also will all eyepieces fit into my scope meaning are they standard sizes???,,tnks

hi supergiant
what you probably need is the celestron eye opener kit the eye pieces range from a 32mm to a 4mm hence 32mm for galexies down to 4mm for planetary detail and all the colour filters are there to .even if you get a bigger telescope in time you will still use the same eye pieces kit. if you have any questions just pm me.

im not sure of the quality of my lenses,and im new to astronomy well in regards to having a scope iam, so focal length stuff im not sure of,also will all eyepieces fit into my scope meaning are they standard sizes???,,tnks

Now a days most eye-pieces are standard. In the past there used to be some different sizes around but I haven't seen a non-standard one in ages.

You might find this helpful for figuring out magnifications and how they are a product of your scope and your eye-piece: www.bartbusschots.ie/blog/?p=158

Bart.