Telescope eyepieces

Thanks to everyone for the helpfull advice, much appreciated.
I've been looking at the baader hyperion and also the meade 4000 and 5000. Not sure yet but the hyperion seems to get the thumbs up from nearly everyone so ill prob choose those. Will def get a lunar filter, what about light pollution filters? Do they help or are they only a gimmick? I noticed alot of people say they have an 8" f something or other....whats the f stand for, focal length? Some figures seem small like 6 whereas according to the spec my focal length is 1200mm, aperature 203mm. Is this important in choosing the eyepieces as well?
Tony

The f number refers to the focal ratio.
So your 8inch scope (200mm) with a focal lenght of 1200 gives you an f number of 1200/200 = f6. This is a fast scope, good for lower powers and wide field of views.

If you're in one of the clubs, maybe you should go visit some of the members with scopes and see for yourself what eyepieces they have and try them out. Most eyepeices these days are so good, its hard to decide what you want.

I'm surprised to hear that a zoom eyepeice is getting good reviews, most have issues with narrowing fields of views or reducing eyerelief as you up the power. I must get a look at this hyperion zoom.

I heard very good reviews on televue zoom 3-6mm. It is useful on high magnification as you can find exact point where resolution is best. Zoom is definitely not good for beginners with dobsonian.

a 6-3mm zoom? a specialist eyepiece!. I'd bet thats only for real fast refractor.
On my 12", that would give magnifications of 1000x-500x and on the dob would be 833x-417x.
Under real good conditons I can use the 417x, but really these powers are too high.

The Meade 4000 series are very good value for money.
Well worth buying a few of these secondhand, You will get years of fun from them.
These will do fine for medium magnification.

For low magnification, a 2" wide angle eyepiece is the biz.
Personally, I love the Televue Naglers, but they are not cheap.
A good alternative are the Televue Panoptic eyepiece.

At higher magnifications for observing the planets, the Burgess Optical / TMB Planetary eyepieces get good reviews.