New scope with crap eyepieces?

Hello everyone,


My first telescope arrived a few days ago, I got a sky watcher explorer 150p for £216 from Ace Cameras in Bristol, all in all including delivery and a polar scope it came in under €350.

Any way I set it up and have to admit I was very impressed with the quality of the construction except the eye pieces. It comes with a 25mm, 10mm and a 2* barlow and they look like toys.

I used it first during the day to align the finder scope. The 25mm seemed ok but the 10mm is shit. I couldn’t get it to focus sharply and the image was very dull. I tried it later on Mars and could see the shape of a planet but a very poor image and with the barlow even more rubbish.

So, is it the cheap eye piece or is an image like that inherent in a reflector? If it’s the scope I’ve bought the wrong one but if it’s the eye piece what manufacture is recommended and what sort of money should I spend before the eye piece is wasted on the scope? The focuser accepts 1.25” and 2” eye pieces.

First off all your telescope is a good starter scope(if its your first) sky-watcher produce some good scopes for their price.

Second of all before I get to into eyepieces is your collimation on your scope off there's loads of info on the net about this to help you along the way. Sometimes with these barlow lens they actually are rubbish we all been through then its common in this hobby lol. watch your looking at really depends on what your observing if its faint fuzzys than a low to medium mag is needed if its planetary a high mag works best. etc

As for buying other eyepieces I highly recommend the Baader Hyperion a great eyepiece for their price wouldn't recommend anything less.

There will be loads of other people on here with great advice so your in the right place.

Hi Crescent,

Welcome aboard! I agree with John, make sure your collimation is done correctly. This ensures that the centre of focus is alligned to the centre of curvature of your mirror, therefore making sure all light comes to a uniform point of focus (at your eyepiece). The collimation of your scope could be due to movement during transit.

Here are some FAQ's about collimating a telescope:
www.atmsite.org/contrib/Carlin/collimation/

There is a lot there, but it is easy to read. You will need a red-dot laser collimating tool to help. The link above explains this. You can get them quite cheap online, just check out any telescope retailer for info. Here is some info from SkyWatcher themselves:

www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtinc/produ...&class1=5&class2=501


If, after all is said and done, you still get poor image quality, then it is probably down to the eyepieces, but only at the last minute could it be this.

Hope this helps!

Seanie.

That should be a good 'scope and I'd agree with the others who suggest getting it collimated - it is very likely indeed that with all the shipping involved one of the mirrors may have shifted a bit and that would give the symptoms you describe.

I have the two eyepieces you have - the standard Skywatcher pair and whilst they are far from being the best, they are not a bad place to start from, though I'd forget all about the barlow, that is rubbish!

But go with the collimation first - and you'll need to do it fairly regularly if you get taking your 'scope on car rides to dark sites so the outlay on a collimator is well worth it.

Thanks for replying.

When I got the scope first I noticed straight away that the mirrors were not aligned. I looked at the manual and tried my best to align them with a 35mm film tube as suggested in the manual. When I looked down the focuser when I was finished it looked fine.

I checked it again tonight and I can’t adjust it any better. I was going to get one of the collimation tools (£24) when I was ordering the telescope but I taught it was a gimmicky thing so I got the polar scope instead.

I take it the scope is still not set right and that’s why the 25mm was ok but the 10mm performed poorly.

By any stretch of the imagination I'm no prude, but is it possible to curb the use of certain words on the site?

Paul