Am I Covered?

Hi there.

Lately I've been thinking that there's a gap in my EP collection, but now I'm not sure, what do you think?

I was thinking that the gap was between my 6mm Radian and 13mm Nagler, I was thinking along the lines of a 9mm Nagler or a 10mm Radian, I even bid on a 10mm Radian on Ebay, but now I'm beginning to have some doubts.

What does everyone think?

Paul

Hi Paul,
I have found that when you go up to higher magnifications, you need to have your eyepeices powers increase in smaller increments, some might not agree, but I got 5,7,9mm eyepieces and start off with the 9 mm and work my way up and sometimes find that the 7mm is the max power I can use and on rare occasions the 5mm works.
What scope are you using these eyepeices in and how often do you use the 6mm?

I have found that when you go up to higher magnifications, you need to have your eyepeices powers increase in smaller increments,

That was my thinking also Dave, that's why I was looking.

The scopes I use are the 12" dob and an ETX 105.

The 6mm rarely gets used in the dob, though it gets used more in the ETX for the Sun and Moon, haven't had a chance to observe the planets with it yet.

I guess another option is a barlow with my 18mm Radian. Any opinions of the Televue barlows? I was considering a Powermate, but the money was needed elsewhere.

Paul

I seem to recall using my 8mm 68º AFOV Hyperion quite a lot with that scope Paul. It perfectly framed M13 for instance. Then again I had the tracking platform so didn't need to worry about it quickly drifting to the edge of the FOV. Maybe an 8mm Nagler would be a good choice.

Did I read you hardly ever use your 6mm? My 5mm got a lot of use in that scope on the moon and planets. It was my 3.5mm that rarely got used but by rarely I mean only every forth or fifth session when the seeing could take it. But when it did. Wowza!! I remember at the IYA '09 100 hours thingie I used the 5mm on Saturn all night and the views were lovely. At the end of the session with the last few members of the public I chanced my arm with the 3.5mm at 428x and found the seeing had improved even more and the views were stunning. The image scale and sharpness meant we could see the rings looping back behind the disc, gap between rings and disc and the sliver of ring shadow even though the ring tilt was only about 2º or 3º IIRC.

So yeah, maybe a 2x barlow would be a good buy to use with your 13mm & 6mm