eyepiece recommendations

Hi

I've had a Skywatcher 130pm newtownian for the last month or so and have had loads of enjoyment out of it, moon, mars, saturn and various messier objects. I've even started a bit of eyepiece projection photography (my avatar is a reduced sized version of my first attempt at the moon)

The scope came with a 25mm, 10mm and 2x barlow and I want to get some more eyepieces. I would like to get a 5mm as when added to the barlow this will push the scope to its max i.e 260x plus some other eyepieces. I am concerned however that the 5mm will have such a tiny hole to look through it will be more hassle than it's worth, particularly as I sometimes wear specs. I've seen long eye relief eyepieces, are these worth considering? I've seen various kits of eyepieces, again are these worth it or should I buy a few decent eyepieces

Recommendations are greatly appreciated.

thanks

CJ

Hi CJ,
You already have a 10mm ep and a 2x barlow which effectively works as a 5mm eyepiece so why would you want to replicate this ? I wouldnt go down this road if I was you and its eyerelief will be poor I can tell you.
You can get better eyerelief eyepieces but they do cost more.

Maybe consider a good 15mm eyepiece, with the barlow it'll work like a 7.5, that would give you a good range, or maybe a a 17 or 18mm if you can get one.

Hi CJ

I would recommend the Baader Hyperion 8mm, it has a wide field of view and great eye relief. I can understand your thinking about the tiny hole you'd be looking down, the lens on my 7mm Ortho looks miniscule next to the Hyperion.

I wouldn't worry about going up to 260X, chances are you would rarely go that high and the field of view is incredibly narrow.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I was going for the 5mm as with the barlow it would go to the theoretical max the scope can handle i.e 260x however I know that would need ideal seeing conditions to achieve.

I want to get the best out of my scope for planetary viewing, so far I've seen Mars, Venus & Saturn and with my optics I can go up to 130x with the 10mm plus 2x barlow as the focal length is 650mm.

Mars was a very bright pinkish colour and I could see some detail, venus was what you would expect and Saturn although tiny was beautiful, I could see the shadow of the rings and I was left on a high so much that I didnt go to bed all night and watched it until dawn (much to the annoyance of the Mrs). It was still really bright and sharp at 130x so I know my scope can be pushed further for a better view. Especially as we are in rural Northern Ireland with very black skies.

would this be any good?
www.scopesnskies.com/prod/90.html

For Messier objects eg: M42 & M31 the optics I have seem ok

cheers

CJ