What eyepieces are in your kit?

Plössls have an AFOV of 50 degrees

All Plossls? no matter the mm size?

So a 4mm plossl has a 50 degree FOV...................just as a 32mm plossl does?

I must check online for my EP kit again cuz i'm sure i read the FOV of each EP.

Well unless it says otherwise, eg it could be an ultra-wide eyepiece giving an apparent view of 80 degrees or so, yes, a 32mm and 4mm plossl will have the exact same apparent field of view, but of course a completely different true field of view.

It's useful to know the true FOV for your eyepieces. My 20mm gives me a 1 degree FOV. I know the moon is about 0.5 degrees in diamater, so I know that it will fill most of my eyepiece. You don't need to be interested in the technicalities at all, but it helps to know approximately how much you will see with each eyepiece, I usually use the moon as a reference point.

Also, if you use a tool like Stellarium, zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or page up/down until the FOV indicator matches that of the true field of view of your eyepiece. You will see on the screen exactly what you will see through the eyepiece. So you can make a field of view of 1 degree, and position it on the moon and see how big it is, then position it on a galaxy or cluster and see how big you should expect to see them when searching. Useful when trying to work out what stars you will see when starhopping.

Also if you use a star map, it helps to get a piece of wire, and make a circle out of it, and using the scale at the side of the chart, make a 5 degree circle (for your finderscope) and a 1 degree circle (or whatever your lowest eyepiece is). You can then use this circle on the chart to plan out star hops, seeing exactly how many field of views you will have to move to find objects. You can then compare your real life view with the wire circle view, and make sure you are looking in the right place.


(image from old magazine I have)

Also, if you use a tool like Stellarium, zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or page up/down until the FOV indicator matches that of the true field of view of your eyepiece. You will see on the screen exactly what you will see through the eyepiece. So you can make a field of view of 1 degree, and position it on the moon and see how big it is, then position it on a galaxy or cluster and see how big you should expect to see them when searching.

Thats handy stuff to know. I do use stellarium but basically to locate a starting point to my star hopping. I didnt know it allows you to zoom in on an object to see just how big it will appear in any given EP.


I will investigate that tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up on it.

I never paid attention to the numbers and stuff on the program.


Also if you use a star map, it helps to get a piece of wire, and make a circle out of it, and using the scale at the side of the chart, make a 5 degree circle (for your finderscope) and a 1 degree circle (or whatever your lowest eyepiece is). You can then use this circle on the chart to plan out star hops, seeing exactly how many field of views you will have to move to find objects. You can then compare your real life view with the wire circle view, and make sure you are looking in the right place.

WOW............i like this method. Really shows you what you will see in your EP.

Thanks for this. This is great stuff to know.

Eyepiece update, over the summer I went a little mad and went ona splurg on astromart, got my hands on a 5mm, 7mm and 9mm T6 Naglers, I figured their respective magnifications of 500, 357, 278 were far apart enough to justify them, they make excellent globular and planetary eyepieces.
I find that the seeing always allows the 9mm to work well, on most nights the 7 and on the best nights the 5mm. I figured that if they didn't work out I could sell them off on astromart, no loss, but they're great so I'll be hanging on to them. They make the meade plossls look so narrow!

I also had relations over in Las Vegas where I asked them to pay a visit to Scopecity where they picked my up a 26 and 31mm (the holy hand grenade) T5 naglers, these are amazing eyepieces and gigantic, I figured again I could sell whichever I found inferior but just couldn't make up my mind so now I'm hanging on to both of them, :shock:

Hi

I have a full set of Baader Hyperion 1.25" eyepieces (3.5mm to 24mm) and a Celestron Eyeopener kit, plus assorted kellners, old Scopetronix wide field digiscoping eyepieces for my Nikon compacts and the usual eyepieces you get with scopes (which I always keep to pass on if I sell or give away the scope).

My preference is to use the Hyperions but the Celestron plossls are light weight and that's useful with less robust focusers or at high elevations with Crayford type focusers that have too little friction to support heavier weights like the Hyperion.

I recently got a set of Baader Hyperions, 21mm, 13mm and 8mm to complement my set of meade plossls 25,20, 12, 9, and 6mm.
I also upgraded to new dielectric 1.25" (WO) and 2" diagonals (GSO). The diagonals make a noticable difference over the ones that come with the scopes as standard.

I have the two eyepieces that came with the scope (kellners, I think)10mm & 25mm plus 2x Barlow plus just got a GSO kit from Scopes and Skies consisting of:

6mm, 9mm, 12mm, 15mm, 20mm & 32mm Plossls plus filters.
The quality of both the optics & the general build is way superior to the nasty plastic feel of the two supplied eyepieces so I'm delighted with this kit.

Looking forward to using the ND filter with the full moon.


Good tips on Stellarium, Euronymous, cheers!