Eyepiece recommendations

Hi

I am on the lookout for some 2" wide angle eyepieces between 20 and 40mm focal length. The top of the range eyepieces (i.e Televue) are, to say the least, vert pricey. Looking through the websites, BCF are offering the new Meade QX wide angles eyepieces for around €100. Telescope service have an offer on their own branded WA eyepieces (which I believe are revelation). Does anyone have any recommendations? I want to keep the cost at or around €100 per eyepiece and ideally I am looking for 36-38mm and 26mm.

Hi John

I use the Moonfish 30mm with a FOV of 80 degs. and am pretty happy with it. At the moment I am using it on a LXD 75 with an F5 6 inch reflector. (They are 99 yo yos )

At F5 it is soft on the outer 20 percent or so, but I bareley notice it. If you are using it on an F10 scope, this shouldnt be a problem..

Their web address is www.moonfishgroup.com

Depends on what you want to use the eyepieces for - for planetary work, you can get away with relatively cheap and simple designs - I use a mixture of ultra-cheepo Kellners and Orthoscopics and they work very nicely. For wide-field, faint-fuzzie hunting I use Naglers and Panoptics... and you won't be able to prize them out of my dead fingers! I love 'em

Phil.

It will probably be the faint fuzzies. I have a good set of Meade 4000's at 1.25". I recently bought a 2" revelation diagonal from BCF to replace the basic one that came with my C11. I have never used a 2" eyepiece before.

John,
Those Meade 4000 series eyepieces are not bad at all. I've a set of them and still find them quite good.
The question I suppose you neeed to ask yourself is how long you plan to stay with astronomy, how often you think you will use a low power wide-amngle eyepiece and what scope you have now/will have in the future.
Some time ago I bought a 27mm Panoptic, 17mm Nagler and 9mm Nagler. These are incredible eyepieces which deliver very sharp wide-angle views, but with prices to match unfortunately. However, I kept a close eye on astromart and picked them up second-hand. There's no way on earth I would have bought all three at new price from this side of the pond.
I've seen fellas on various forums with shelves of eyepieces. Personally, I think it's much better to have about 3-4 really good quality eyepieces that will last you many many years into the future. Of course this is painful now, but saves you buying other eyepieces in the future.
Just my 2cent.

I got a meade 14mm UWA second hand on astromart and its an amazing eyepiece (reviews on the web rank it at the best eyepiece meade ever made). I also got a 22mm type 2 nagler which is a beast but does a great job on wide field images.
Never buy them new, I get all of mine on astromart and at a good knock down price. I know these are expensive eyepieces, but they are worth it.
I would consider 4 to be a good range, maybe 5 at the most.