Still having a few sound issues folks sorry about that.. Still waiting for a new mic to arrive... Hopefully RODE microphones are watching this... I haven't got a sponsor... Wink wink nudge nudge 😉
Your videos are excellent; what I particularly like is that you are not obsessed with Astro photography but a proper old school amateur. Great for people of all ages; I am 60!
Many Thanks Jason, the info you provide is so straightforward and easy to understand using 'normal' language. I learn new things every time without fail! 12 months into my astronomy trip and you have provided a realistic and honest approach for us all without big budget means. Keep up the great work, never mind your perceived quality issues!!! Clear skies.
Good information. Thanks Jason! You might want to mention the difference between 0.965 versus 1.25 versus 2 inch. I've seen people spend money for an eyepiece that won't fit into their focuser.
Hello Peter, Thank you my friend. That's a great point you make there and with hindsight I should have mentioned that... I always manage to forget something... Thanks for your input pal, take care .
Thank you for your uploads! I am receiving my first telescope today, a Power seeker 80eq. I haven't gone overboard but did buy the power seeker accessory kit, a 2x Barlow, a carry bag, and Stellarium plus. I have Autism and things get very overwhelming for me, but I am determined to focus and learn all I can. I find Stellarium to be very overwhelming at the moment but seems easy to figure out...I hope. I have a bad habit of giving up when things get too hard or overwhelming....Thanks to your videos, I think this just may be the hobby I've been wanting to find for my 48 years on this planet. Thank you again and thanks for talking to your viewers like we truly are beginners. Sorry this is long.
Douglas; Wish you the best on your journey through the cosmos. Don,t get down if you can,t locate the object your looking for it happens to all of us. It,s nothing your doing wrong it the seeing conditions.But with a little practice it will become 2nd nature to you. Again good luck and keep looking up. From north carolina.
Just bought a Barska Starwatcher 90060 with 675 power. Its my first telescope and i didn't realize how difficult the learning curve would be! Thank you for helping us newbies!!! You know your stuff sir! Keep up the good work.
Hi Jason, I got my first telescope for Christmas and I've been binge watching all your videos! They've been very useful with getting me started, thank you for all the help and valuable information!
Thank you Jason! Another comprehensive and entertaining astro video. Don't mind the microphone or dropping things or the minor miscues. These are some of the qualities that make your presentations so endearing. Please keep up the great work. Wishing you nothing but clear skies from across the pond.
I like the channels where the host doesn't edit out slight miscues. This isn't HBO for Gods sake lol. I like that Jason is a human and not an obvious perfectionist.
I’m very lucky to live in dark sky area in deepest Dorset , I can literally gaze from my bedroom window, Orions Belt, Jupiter etc etc on good nights you can see the Milky Way, I got my first telescope some 15 years ago not being a great one from eBay, Ive finally taken the plunge into a new scope 😁 with limited funds and disability I have gone for a Celestron 102mm refractor that hopefully I can manage better physically and get some much better viewing, your vids have helped a lot and have been invaluable, a couple of new books as you recommended in one of your vids I’m hopefully now on a better track with astronomy, thank you for sharing you brilliant knowledge. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thanks so much for these videos! My son is turning 6 and really wants a telescope for his birthday and these have been great for helping me chose a telescope, eyepieces, and filters to get. I always wanted a telescope too so I'm also excited!
I haven't checked through the comments, and so hope I'm not piling on. 😊 The Huygenian eyepiece name is pronounced with a hard "g". The word sounds kind of like this: Hoi-GEE-nee-an The designer was Dutch astronomer Chriistian Huygens, pronounced HOI-genz (again, with a hard "g".) Cheers, from across the pond! Glenn
I think that in the category of excellent value for money eyepieces, in addition to the Plössl, it is worth mentioning the orthoscopic, very suitable especially for Moon and planetary details. They have the disadvantages of a low eye relief (similar to Plössl, 80% of the focal length aprox.), and a generally slightly lower FOV than Plössl, but the optical correction makes up for it. There are currently modified orthoscopic devices on the market at a reasonable price that greatly improve these aspects.
Hi Jason, thanks for your work. Love your channel. Just a few thoughts: - Too much of the eye relief can be uncomfortable if you don't use eyeglasses. - H eyepieces are not THAT bad, they are adequate as starter eyepieces when come with cheap scopes. I compared H25, H12.5, and H9 with Super 25, and 10 from another scope, and ... yes, of course they aren't great, but they are usable, at least they are "free", and sharpness is surprisingly Ok. Actually, the biggest difference was between H25 and Super 25, but H12.5 is better than Super 10, and H9 is almost on par with Super 10, to my opinion. Anyway, what is really disappointing, is to buy an expensive eyepiece only to find that you don't like it.
I’m house-sitting at my friends property which is out in the country. Oh my gosh. The sky here blows my mind. Only about 45 minutes from my house but it’s totally different! I truly wish that I could have brought my telescope but just didn’t have room. Hopefully my binoculars will suffice tonight! Your videos are great, sir. Thank you for this content.
When I got past the jessops cheap refractor, I got a 127mm mak and a 120mm refractor. Came with 25mm and 10mm as standard.. the 10mm has hardly been used (it's bad). The 25mm is still used till this day! Use it on a target like M35 (with no moon), outstanding! I got a 40mm and a 15mm plossl shortly after and still use them. The 15mm is great for doubles but it can be out of focus in places due to my stigmatism. I also have an 8mm bst but that isnt great in the uk skies...blurry as heck and constantly trying to focus...nearing 200x mag is too much for my scopes.
Hi Jason nice video. I am a bit confused about how to collimate my secondary mirror without a laser. Also really enjoyed the livestream last time you should do another one😃
Great video with awesome information! Keep up the good work. I have learned so much from you. One comment. There was no mention of the different eyepiece barrel sizes. I have a Newtonian scope that uses 0.965" (24.5mm). I have found that there are also 1.25" eyepieces out there.. Folks should understand the distinction. My scope is an old Meade Electronic 114EQ-DH4. Should I (or can I) upgrade to the 1.25" eyepieces? Also there was no mention of "Ortho" eyepieces. Are these obsolete as well? Sorry for all the questions. After watching your channel, I will definitely be upgrading to new eyepieces.
Thank you for this video,it was very clear for a newbie like me. I was thinking to buy a celestron regal2 100 ed Budget wise I think its not bad,but there is so much on the market you don't know anymore Mostly for wildlife spotting,apparently you can use it,not as real astronomy kind of telescopes. But to get a bit of a sense to watch the moon with it. The eyepiece thing it was puzzling for me. Focal divide by number on eyepiece If I understand correctly,the lower the number x10 magnified more then x40 How come some are more expensive even with a higher number? Atb Steve
Hi Jason, Finding your web sight was a lucky find for me. It is very informative and amusing at times too. I watched the above eyepiece basics and that cleared up a great deal of the black magic for me. This message from me is to try and short circuit a search for an additional eye piece. I have the 130 x 900 sky watcher telescope as you have displayed in your videos including the Barlow, 10mm and 25mm eyepieces. To save a lot of time I'm hoping you could recommend a good quality eyepiece that would produce higher quality images. I would be quite happy to pay up to around £150 if that would be enough to provide what I'm hoping to achieve. I'm looking for a suggestion or two if you could provide me with something it would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work and very interesting videos. Kind regards. Doug McTavish. Currently living in Stavanger Norway.
Hi Jason, firstly, thank you for an easy to understand, down to earth, relaxed channel. I have just bought a skywatcher P250i, as it can be used both as a go to or free hand. I’m looking for a Barlow lens and would like to know what you would recommend. I’ve seen skywatchers own lens an svbony and a bst star guider. Your option would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Dave.
I've got a 200p skywatcher quattro and needed 200x magnification for planets. I've bought my share of ED Wide Angle 4mm and 5mm lenses and they are very much needed for camera footage of planets, but there are in fact really good ones for under $65 that I've found on websites such as agenaastro and highpoint scientific.
Might want to be careful with shorter focal length eyepieces in long focal length telescopes as aperture and atmospheric magnification limits still apply.
Short focal length eyepieces in long focal length tubes are likely to exceed the maximum recommended magnifications for the telescope's aperture, so good focus will be very difficult to achieve and atmospheric turbulence will be magnified to the point that it will be impossible to observe anything with minimum quality...
My eyepiece says PL25, which I assume is plossel.. I took it apart and each lens has a little groove around the edge where I think each element is actually 2 elements bonded together... I took it apart because it looked like it had fibers on the lens from the previous owner and to blacken the optic edges. Cleaned, did the edges, and reassembled and all the fibers are gone. Terrible viewing conditions this evening though, bright moon, hazy, cloudy, and windy
I have a small collection of them including .965"but no telescope to fit them in anymore of that type!I don't think that I have any H or R 1.25"but the .965"'s might be of that type.No 2"ones and if I did nowt to put them in!I used a 25mm Kelner to take a photo of the Sun today.
Thank you Jason , I recently purchased a second hand skywatcher 114mm 900 mm focal length. And yes it included the dreaded H type eyepieces, but thanks to watching several of your previous videos I have already ordered a new set of plossl eyepieces From SVBony. The one eyepiece I have that isn't a H type is labeled SR 4mm , Does this mean it is a super or some other type of eyepiece ? also you didn't say what sort of quality a super is. Once again thank you for your great easy to understand videos.
Hello Jason, Thanks for sharing information on Telescopes.... Please clarify my doubt. I had purchased Rambot Universal 4K HD 28X Zoom Mobile Phone Monocular Telescope. But i am not able see moon/ star in mobile phone screen (used a clip to attach telescope with mobile camera). Please clarify how to view moon/ star in mobile phone screen using this telescope.
I have an H20mm eyepiece that I like, but not as an eyepiece. I invert it and use it as a magnifier for my coins. It is metal, but it's almost 50 years old. 😀
I found your videos very good, i bought a celestron 114 recently, an when i try to focus on star for example , the spider comes into sight' could you tell me what could be my problem pls ??
Wrote a comment yesterday but got a failed to post emoji. Just saying that I just bought a new Saxon 102 refractor recently and it came with eyepieces MA 25, 9 and 6.3mm. My 130x900 reflector, also a Saxon, has a 'Super 25 wide angle' up it's spout. No idea where the others are. My reflector is pre-pandemic and I'd have to trip over a junk box to find them. They were only good for the moon anyways...oh yeah, I'm going to try a Plossl when my telescope shop gets them back in stock...
your channel is great . I do have one question regarding eyepieces , I have been looking to upgrade my eyepieces and I have seen adjustable eyepieces what is your opinion on them ?
Hi Jason, I have just took delivery of a Celestron Nexstar 130 slt. It came with two eyepieces, a 9mm and a 25mm. There are no letters on them to distinguish what type they are besides the aforementioned sizes marked on the side and the Celestron branding. They are just standard eyepieces that Celestron ship with their scopes and seem fairly simple and cheaply made, so I suspect they may be Huygenians, but I can't be certain as I'm a beginner. Being uncertain of the type, I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading so any info would be much appreciated. Brilliant videos by the way, keep it up!
Tried looking into those eyepieces and I can't find anything concrete. Their Nexstar series seem to be the only one with these eyepieces as you cannot buy them separately. My best guess judging from the size of the lenses is that these are equivalent to their omni series eyepieces which are plössl. That's also the only eyepiece I could find that celestron sells at 9mm. Of course I could be wrong and it's just huygenian... sorry for not being very helpful on identifying them, I tried my best.
I have the exact solo-mark telescope shown in your video, l am looking to upgrade the eyepieces, what would you recommend for great planets and sky viewing? Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Great video, great channel! I bought SkyWatcher 130/900 on EQ2 (without the motor) few days ago and now I found this channel, so I'm watching videos all day long, many things are clearer now, but new questions arise :) I want to buy 15mm eyepiece and a barlow, so what do you recommend for those two? SV BONY UW 15mm with 68 degrees FOV or plossl 15mm or something third? SV BONY barlow or celestron like yours or something third?
Hi Jason, I just found your channel; 'brilliant' by the way. Sadly it was after I'd already bought a 76/700 EQ "National Geographic" telescope from Aldi and it came with the cheapo "H" eyepieces. If I go and get some "Plossl" eyepieces, will that redeem me for not doing my homework beforehand? Also, the collomation is 'out' but I'll attempt to rectify that having watched your vid' on the subject. All the best and keep the 'beginner vid's' coming.
Thanks for the information - I’ve watched a few of your videos over the past few days and I now have a decent (hopefully!) Plossl 15mm eyepiece on order, to replace the poor ones that came with the (admitedly fairly cheap) telescope that I bought many years ago. Assuming this gives me good results, what would you recommend as the next buys? Higher or lower magnification? 2x or 3x Barlow? I wear glasses and have mostly looked at the Moon and planets so far, but would would be interested in seeing some DSOs too. Thanks for any advice you can give me.
So I took my brand new Orion Starblast II 4.5 Equatorial Reflector telescope outside for the first time tonight. It came with a PloSSL 25mm and 10mm eyepieces. Venus was big and bright in the west just after sunset, and I was able to find it with no problem. I started with the 25mm eyepiece just to make sure I could find Venus in the viewfinder. I did, no prob. Venus looked like a tiny dot, and I couldn’t really make out what it was. It looked like a crescent moon with the left side lit up. 🤷♂️ I popped in the 10mm lens and I was expecting a much better picture in the viewfinder, (2.5 X what the 25mm lens gave me right?) but it didn’t seem like much of a difference. I still couldn’t make out much. It looked like pretty much the same picture. Am I expecting too much? I have a 2x Barlow and a 6.3mm and a 3.6mm lens on the way. I’m hoping the 6.3mm with the 2x Barlow will give me ~ 143x magnification vs. the 45x I had tonight, and that will produce a better picture in the viewfinder. Is there an astronomy website I can go to to see pictures of what I can expect to see with various lenses??
Hey Jason interesting video and I must say the first eyepieces I owned were from the Vixen custom 80m refractor which were pretty good quality and I knew they weren't cheap ones. Basic ones you get in skyeatcher just gets you started and some of the more cheaper telescopes come with good eyepieces which isn't expensive. I don't throw these types of eyepieces away. Been lucky in eyepiece department even my Bnise 70mm refractor didn't come with crap eyepieces which surprised me. Have you came across any had ones? Take care buddy and hope you get clear skies as I've seen Jupiter few nights ago.
Hey Bushcraft, the only time I've had really bad eyepieces with my first couple of telescopes but both were only department telescopes Tasco I think and of course they were provided with H eyepieces... Yes I'm still looking forward to the gas giants, still not had a good look yet but towards the end of the month they appear from behind the trees and buildings that have been blocking them all year.. Can't wait.. Take care, clear skies buddy :)
Hello ! One question, how do you know when an eyepiece quality surpasses your main telescope quality and then you get no additional advantage on getting a more expensive eyepiece ? I'll give you an example, I have a Celestron TrailSeeker 80 Spotting scope and a 114 LCM and I attached an Omni Ploss Celestron EP and I liked the quality of the image , however, I wouldn't know at what point an EP would be overkill ? In Celestron lineup would the limit be Omni , Ultima, Luminous? I'm kinda confused and I'm just very new to all of this
Hello Geoffrey your more than welcome my friend.. Plossl's are a bit posh they are certainly better than the others I mentioned not that there is anything wrong with the others apart from the H range of course.. Yes PL is plossl, hold on to it it'll be a good eyepiece.
Not necessarily true. I have cheap set of Huygens from department telescope and I used them with my 90mm Orion telescope. 25mm Hyugens performed quite well, and I was hard pressed to tell difference between the nicer Plossl eyepiece I have for that scope. 4mm Ramsden was indeed horrible. So you need to test each eyepiece to see if they are worth keeping. For me 25mm Huygens was pretty decent and well worth keeping.
Hi Jason. Another question... Is there an advantage or disadvantage to using a Barlow to match a lower mm eyepiece, instead of just choosing the higher magnification one to begin with? As example, would a 3X Barlow with a 12mm eyepiece be comparable with a 4mm eyepiece? I would think stacking another piece of glass into view could have disadvantages, but to use a Plossl as example, the orifice on the 4mm is quite small, so finding the sweet spot to place the eye (especially with glasses) is more of a challenge. Free holding a cellphone camera in front of the best view is quite the challenge. ...I'm a newbie, so I'm still on a steep learning curve, and it's been in the single digits fahrenheit outside at night so I'm not putting in the hours (so am continuing research like this inquiry). ANYWAY, any insight would be appreciated. I did get some excellent lunar photos simply stacking a 2x Barlow with a 10mm eyepiece on the Orion 4.5, holding the iPhone by hand, and using the phone to enlarge the snapshots. (...and I found an 8" Orion Dob that I pick up on Monday). Thanks for all of your videos.
Old simple 4 lens elements or less eyepiece designs, like Plossl, have their eye relief always shorter than focal length. So using Barlow allows getting same magnification, while mainining eye relief of longer focal length eyepiece. Of course adding more glass to lights path is challenge to keeping image quality, but good qualtiy Barlows have minimal effect. Newer more complex eyepiece designs basically use built in Barlow as first part in optical path to allow longer focal length and eye relief for actual image forming optics.
I'm waiting for my first telescope, an 8" dobson with a 32mm SWA 2" eyepiece. I wanted to buy additional eyepieces but I didn't think the Plössls would be any good. I thought it looked like the opening on the higher power plössles would be annoyingly small... Anyway, I bought a set of red Svbony UW eyepieces instead. So I take it my fear of the plössles was unwarranted?
Plössls have short eye relief under 10mm focal lenght, I don't like them at those focal lenghts for that. The downside of those UW is that they might might not be good with a barlow lens. Afov is less important at high magnification, focus on glass quality.
Hello Jimmy, Plossl's do get short on eye relife after about 12mm and below but that applies to most standard eyepieces.. The Svbony's you have got a great choice and should work well with your new telescope.
Help! I'm a novice and I inherited a 700 power 90mm equatorial mount telescope about 30 years ago. I've only used it once years ago and I only recently learned how to do a polar alignment, but my main issue is that I can't get the objective to focus. I only have one eyepiece at the moment, it says 25x on the side, and that eyepiece works well in the spotting scope, but I just can't get the objective to focus. I the eyepiece the problem?
Just got my 8'' dob last week, and was wondering about the 4 perpendicular lines you see on everything, being stars or planets... is this caused by cheap low-quality eyepieces? does this go away when buying more expensive lenses? I want to get used a bit on the telescope before starting to buy new more expensive ones, so using kinda cheap celestron eyepieces for the time being...
that maybe from the secondary mirror holder... light is being diffracted. That's the thing with newtonian telescopes. They get the perpendicular diffraction spikes on bright objects.
Hey! I'm a beginner with a nice bresser telescope which came with an H4 and H20 eyepiece, as well as an erecting eyepiece 1.5x and a Barlow 3x lens. My issue is with chasing whatever I'm looking at, especially using the H4, because the earth spins way too fast for me to get a good look at something. Once it gets out of view it's very hard to find it again, and even with patience it becomes frustrating when you are chasing Saturn for 2 and a half hours just for a quick shaky glance. Is there any way to fix this, or do you have any tips for the earth's spin being an issue?
Any telescope coming with best before date expired two centuries ago Huygens eyepieces definitely isn't nice and is more toward hobby killer category. Also mounts of such telescopes will likely start shaking just from giving it too stern look. Now eyepieces would be easy to replace assuming standard 1.25" barrel size, but mount is far harder to fix. There isn't much sense in getting new mount for what's propably very low end telescope. (for telescope upgrade you would want Dobson for most performance per money)
@@saythealphabet776 Already basic Plössls would be huge upgrade from Huygens with 2/3 wider view. Though also shorter focal length Plössls have crappy short eye relief. What kind budget you would have and what's the precise model of current telescope?
@@tuunaes Bresser GmbH Skylux 60/700 AZ. Zenit mirror. The diameters of my eyepieces are 31.7 mm, and focus distance is 700 mm. It's a low-end made in china telescope but I guess it does the trick for planetary observation. Do you think I could see deep sky objects I couldn't before with a new eyepiece? My budget for eyepieces is less than 80$, I don't want to spend too much on them but I still want something better than the Huygean ones
H EP..He Said They Were Designed 100’s and 100’s Of Years Ago😂😂Ive Been Binging Your Channel All Night,and Really Enjoying It,You Have A New Sub,Ive Never Owned A K Or Below,My Scopes Came With Plossl,Or None😂,I Would Like A Recommendation For A Diagonal And Some EP For My Evostar80ed,That Santa Hooked Me Up With(Finished My DS Set Up,Evostar80ed,Evoguide50ed,On The Eqm35Pro❤🔭❤️But Also Own An AR102/1000,A 6Se,Mak90,and The 114LCM Was My 1st Goto Abou 6Years Ago,and Still Works Great,I Use It For Solar❤,As Far As $ On The EP..🤔🤔Between $50-$100 Would Be Good,Im Not Getting It All At 1 Time,Just Would Like To Be Set Up By Spring,April/Mayish,Thank You..Stay Safe,God Bless,and Clear Skies🙏🏻❤️✨🔭🌏
How do you feel about those super 10 and super 25 eyepieces? Those are the exact ones my telescope came with (I got it used from a guy that got it used). Should I replace them?
@klodno6164: I got the same ones with my telescope.....the 10mm was crap but the 25mm was "useable" but not perfect. I've upgraded both of them now to a 9mm Baader Morpheus and an Explore Scientific 26mm......both are a massive improvement.
Can anyone guide me to a link or video that can assist a beginner with selecting a good eyepiece for viewing planets properly because I realize the majority of these content creators are just rambling on leaving the viewer more confused that before they started watching their videos, I recently got a Celestron StarSense explorer lt 127 az, viewing the moon with it is good, observing planets on the other hand isn’t that impressive, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Still having a few sound issues folks sorry about that.. Still waiting for a new mic to arrive... Hopefully RODE microphones are watching this... I haven't got a sponsor... Wink wink nudge nudge 😉
Say no more?
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Your videos are excellent; what I particularly like is that you are not obsessed with Astro photography but a proper old school amateur. Great for people of all ages; I am 60!
Truly one of the best channels for beginners! Thank you
Many Thanks Jason, the info you provide is so straightforward and easy to understand using 'normal' language. I learn new things every time without fail! 12 months into my astronomy trip and you have provided a realistic and honest approach for us all without big budget means. Keep up the great work, never mind your perceived quality issues!!! Clear skies.
Hello Tony, thank you for your kind words my friend very much appreciated. Great to hear my videos have been helping you. Take care pal, clear skies 🙂
Good information. Thanks Jason! You might want to mention the difference between 0.965 versus 1.25 versus 2 inch. I've seen people spend money for an eyepiece that won't fit into their focuser.
Hello Peter, Thank you my friend. That's a great point you make there and with hindsight I should have mentioned that... I always manage to forget something... Thanks for your input pal, take care .
Thank you for your uploads! I am receiving my first telescope today, a Power seeker 80eq. I haven't gone overboard but did buy the power seeker accessory kit, a 2x Barlow, a carry bag, and Stellarium plus. I have Autism and things get very overwhelming for me, but I am determined to focus and learn all I can. I find Stellarium to be very overwhelming at the moment but seems easy to figure out...I hope. I have a bad habit of giving up when things get too hard or overwhelming....Thanks to your videos, I think this just may be the hobby I've been wanting to find for my 48 years on this planet. Thank you again and thanks for talking to your viewers like we truly are beginners. Sorry this is long.
Douglas; Wish you the best on your journey through the cosmos. Don,t get down if you can,t locate the object your looking for it happens to all of us. It,s nothing your doing wrong it the seeing conditions.But with a little practice it will become 2nd nature to you. Again good luck and keep looking up. From north carolina.
Just bought a Barska Starwatcher 90060 with 675 power. Its my first telescope and i didn't realize how difficult the learning curve would be! Thank you for helping us newbies!!! You know your stuff sir! Keep up the good work.
Hi Jason, I got my first telescope for Christmas and I've been binge watching all your videos! They've been very useful with getting me started, thank you for all the help and valuable information!
I recently purchased my first telescope and i can't believe the extreme learning curve involved!
Thank you Jason! Another comprehensive and entertaining astro video. Don't mind the microphone or dropping things or the minor miscues. These are some of the qualities that make your presentations so endearing. Please keep up the great work. Wishing you nothing but clear skies from across the pond.
I just bought an 8 inch dosonian on Craigslist. It came with five eyepieces. This information is very helpful.
Thank you Steven... Lol, I haven't dropped anything in a while have I? Letting the side down XD.. Clear skies buddy.
I like the channels where the host doesn't edit out slight miscues. This isn't HBO for Gods sake lol. I like that Jason is a human and not an obvious perfectionist.
Love the channel. Great information for beginners and intermediate amateur astronomers. Keep up the good work!
I’m very lucky to live in dark sky area in deepest Dorset , I can literally gaze from my bedroom window, Orions Belt, Jupiter etc etc on good nights you can see the Milky Way, I got my first telescope some 15 years ago not being a great one from eBay, Ive finally taken the plunge into a new scope 😁 with limited funds and disability I have gone for a Celestron 102mm refractor that hopefully I can manage better physically and get some much better viewing, your vids have helped a lot and have been invaluable, a couple of new books as you recommended in one of your vids I’m hopefully now on a better track with astronomy, thank you for sharing you brilliant knowledge. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thanks so much for these videos! My son is turning 6 and really wants a telescope for his birthday and these have been great for helping me chose a telescope, eyepieces, and filters to get. I always wanted a telescope too so I'm also excited!
Clear skies, and a late happy birthday to your son, friend!
Very concise and well explained, Jason.
I know next to nothing about optics, but this was excellent instruction.
I haven't checked through the comments, and so hope I'm not piling on. 😊
The Huygenian eyepiece name is pronounced with a hard "g". The word sounds kind of like this:
Hoi-GEE-nee-an
The designer was Dutch astronomer Chriistian Huygens, pronounced HOI-genz (again, with a hard "g".)
Cheers, from across the pond!
Glenn
What can i say another great video and i learn something new everytime!!! Thanks again Jason!
I think that in the category of excellent value for money eyepieces, in addition to the Plössl, it is worth mentioning the orthoscopic, very suitable especially for Moon and planetary details. They have the disadvantages of a low eye relief (similar to Plössl, 80% of the focal length aprox.), and a generally slightly lower FOV than Plössl, but the optical correction makes up for it. There are currently modified orthoscopic devices on the market at a reasonable price that greatly improve these aspects.
Thanks for a simple explanation on eyepieces for a beginner.
You're welcome friend, thanks for watching.
Thanks for this and all the other videos! They are a real help.
Just got my skywatcher 1309 eq2 today. Your videos are brilliant thank you Jason
Hi Jason, thanks for your work. Love your channel. Just a few thoughts:
- Too much of the eye relief can be uncomfortable if you don't use eyeglasses.
- H eyepieces are not THAT bad, they are adequate as starter eyepieces when come with cheap scopes. I compared H25, H12.5, and H9 with Super 25, and 10 from another scope, and ... yes, of course they aren't great, but they are usable, at least they are "free", and sharpness is surprisingly Ok. Actually, the biggest difference was between H25 and Super 25, but H12.5 is better than Super 10, and H9 is almost on par with Super 10, to my opinion. Anyway, what is really disappointing, is to buy an expensive eyepiece only to find that you don't like it.
I've been using a set of RKE eyepieces for years. Love them.
Thank you man, I literally have those exact same H Eyepieces you have shown and I KNEW something was wrong with them. Time to upgrade.
I’m house-sitting at my friends property which is out in the country. Oh my gosh. The sky here blows my mind. Only about 45 minutes from my house but it’s totally different! I truly wish that I could have brought my telescope but just didn’t have room. Hopefully my binoculars will suffice tonight! Your videos are great, sir. Thank you for this content.
Hello there, thank you my friend and your more than welcome. Sounds great, binoculars in dark skies can be just as good as a telescope.. Have fun :)
When I got past the jessops cheap refractor, I got a 127mm mak and a 120mm refractor. Came with 25mm and 10mm as standard.. the 10mm has hardly been used (it's bad). The 25mm is still used till this day! Use it on a target like M35 (with no moon), outstanding! I got a 40mm and a 15mm plossl shortly after and still use them. The 15mm is great for doubles but it can be out of focus in places due to my stigmatism. I also have an 8mm bst but that isnt great in the uk skies...blurry as heck and constantly trying to focus...nearing 200x mag is too much for my scopes.
Legend, I needed this. Should give me something to think about on the eyepiece front while I built my DIY telescope powertank
Good luck with the build my friend.
I'm really enjoying all of your beginner videos I desperately need them 😂
Hi Jason nice video. I am a bit confused about how to collimate my secondary mirror without a laser. Also really enjoyed the livestream last time you should do another one😃
Simple and help. Much appreciated.
Great video with awesome information! Keep up the good work. I have learned so much from you. One comment. There was no mention of the different eyepiece barrel sizes. I have a Newtonian scope that uses 0.965" (24.5mm). I have found that there are also 1.25" eyepieces out there.. Folks should understand the distinction. My scope is an old Meade Electronic 114EQ-DH4. Should I (or can I) upgrade to the 1.25" eyepieces? Also there was no mention of "Ortho" eyepieces. Are these obsolete as well? Sorry for all the questions. After watching your channel, I will definitely be upgrading to new eyepieces.
Thank you Jason for the great video
My new scope arrives today :) Learning what I can, thanks for the videos :)
Enjoy your new telescope my friend, hope it stays clear for you.
Excellent information. Thank you sir.
Very informative thank you
Thank you for this video,it was very clear for a newbie like me.
I was thinking to buy a celestron regal2 100 ed
Budget wise I think its not bad,but there is so much on the market you don't know anymore
Mostly for wildlife spotting,apparently you can use it,not as real astronomy kind of telescopes.
But to get a bit of a sense to watch the moon with it.
The eyepiece thing it was puzzling for me.
Focal divide by number on eyepiece
If I understand correctly,the lower the number x10 magnified more then x40
How come some are more expensive even with a higher number?
Atb
Steve
Hi Jason, Finding your web sight was a lucky find for me. It is very informative and amusing at times too. I watched the above eyepiece basics and that cleared up a great deal of the black magic for me. This message from me is to try and short circuit a search for an additional eye piece. I have the 130 x 900 sky watcher telescope as you have displayed in your videos including the Barlow, 10mm and 25mm eyepieces. To save a lot of time I'm hoping you could recommend a good quality eyepiece that would produce higher quality images. I would be quite happy to pay up to around £150 if that would be enough to provide what I'm hoping to achieve. I'm looking for a suggestion or two if you could provide me with something it would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work and very interesting videos. Kind regards. Doug McTavish. Currently living in Stavanger Norway.
Hi Jason, firstly, thank you for an easy to understand, down to earth, relaxed channel. I have just bought a skywatcher P250i, as it can be used both as a go to or free hand. I’m looking for a Barlow lens and would like to know what you would recommend. I’ve seen skywatchers own lens an svbony and a bst star guider. Your option would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Dave.
I've got a 200p skywatcher quattro and needed 200x magnification for planets. I've bought my share of ED Wide Angle 4mm and 5mm lenses and they are very much needed for camera footage of planets, but there are in fact really good ones for under $65 that I've found on websites such as agenaastro and highpoint scientific.
Thank you very much for the info!
Might want to be careful with shorter focal length eyepieces in long focal length telescopes as aperture and atmospheric magnification limits still apply.
Short focal length eyepieces in long focal length tubes are likely to exceed the maximum recommended magnifications for the telescope's aperture, so good focus will be very difficult to achieve and atmospheric turbulence will be magnified to the point that it will be impossible to observe anything with minimum quality...
My eyepiece says PL25, which I assume is plossel.. I took it apart and each lens has a little groove around the edge where I think each element is actually 2 elements bonded together...
I took it apart because it looked like it had fibers on the lens from the previous owner and to blacken the optic edges. Cleaned, did the edges, and reassembled and all the fibers are gone. Terrible viewing conditions this evening though, bright moon, hazy, cloudy, and windy
I have a small collection of them including .965"but no telescope to fit them in anymore of that type!I don't think that I have any H or R 1.25"but the .965"'s might be of that type.No 2"ones and if I did nowt to put them in!I used a 25mm Kelner to take a photo of the Sun today.
Thank you Jason , I recently purchased a second hand skywatcher 114mm 900 mm focal length. And yes it included the dreaded H type eyepieces, but thanks to watching several of your previous videos I have already ordered a new set of plossl eyepieces From SVBony.
The one eyepiece I have that isn't a H type is labeled SR 4mm , Does this mean it is a super or some other type of eyepiece ? also you didn't say what sort of quality a super is.
Once again thank you for your great easy to understand videos.
Hello Jason, Thanks for sharing information on Telescopes.... Please clarify my doubt. I had purchased Rambot Universal 4K HD 28X Zoom Mobile Phone Monocular Telescope. But i am not able see moon/ star in mobile phone screen (used a clip to attach telescope with mobile camera). Please clarify how to view moon/ star in mobile phone screen using this telescope.
I have an H20mm eyepiece that I like, but not as an eyepiece. I invert it and use it as a magnifier for my coins. It is metal, but it's almost 50 years old. 😀
I found your videos very good, i bought a celestron 114 recently, an when i try to focus on star for example , the spider comes into sight' could you tell me what could be my problem pls ??
Excellent content and material but audio is not good, i wish this video was recorded with better audio gear. Thanks
Is it better to use a 2inch eyepiece or a 1.25inch eyepiece please? My microscope comes with adapters for both! 🤷🏼♀️
Wrote a comment yesterday but got a failed to post emoji. Just saying that I just bought a new Saxon 102 refractor recently and it came with eyepieces MA 25, 9 and 6.3mm. My 130x900 reflector, also a Saxon, has a 'Super 25 wide angle' up it's spout. No idea where the others are. My reflector is pre-pandemic and I'd have to trip over a junk box to find them. They were only good for the moon anyways...oh yeah, I'm going to try a Plossl when my telescope shop gets them back in stock...
your channel is great . I do have one question regarding eyepieces , I have been looking to upgrade my eyepieces and I have seen adjustable eyepieces what is your opinion on them ?
Hi Jason, I have just took delivery of a Celestron Nexstar 130 slt. It came with two eyepieces, a 9mm and a 25mm. There are no letters on them to distinguish what type they are besides the aforementioned sizes marked on the side and the Celestron branding. They are just standard eyepieces that Celestron ship with their scopes and seem fairly simple and cheaply made, so I suspect they may be Huygenians, but I can't be certain as I'm a beginner. Being uncertain of the type, I'm not sure if it's worth upgrading so any info would be much appreciated. Brilliant videos by the way, keep it up!
Tried looking into those eyepieces and I can't find anything concrete. Their Nexstar series seem to be the only one with these eyepieces as you cannot buy them separately. My best guess judging from the size of the lenses is that these are equivalent to their omni series eyepieces which are plössl. That's also the only eyepiece I could find that celestron sells at 9mm. Of course I could be wrong and it's just huygenian... sorry for not being very helpful on identifying them, I tried my best.
@@JollyFigNut Thanks for the info 👍
I have the exact solo-mark telescope shown in your video, l am looking to upgrade the eyepieces, what would you recommend for great planets and sky viewing? Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thanks again!
Great video, great channel! I bought SkyWatcher 130/900 on EQ2 (without the motor) few days ago and now I found this channel, so I'm watching videos all day long, many things are clearer now, but new questions arise :)
I want to buy 15mm eyepiece and a barlow, so what do you recommend for those two?
SV BONY UW 15mm with 68 degrees FOV or plossl 15mm or something third?
SV BONY barlow or celestron like yours or something third?
Hi Jason,
I just found your channel; 'brilliant' by the way. Sadly it was after I'd already bought a 76/700 EQ "National Geographic" telescope from Aldi and it came with the cheapo "H" eyepieces. If I go and get some "Plossl" eyepieces, will that redeem me for not doing my homework beforehand?
Also, the collomation is 'out' but I'll attempt to rectify that having watched your vid' on the subject.
All the best and keep the 'beginner vid's' coming.
Thanks for the information - I’ve watched a few of your videos over the past few days and I now have a decent (hopefully!) Plossl 15mm eyepiece on order, to replace the poor ones that came with the (admitedly fairly cheap) telescope that I bought many years ago. Assuming this gives me good results, what would you recommend as the next buys? Higher or lower magnification? 2x or 3x Barlow? I wear glasses and have mostly looked at the Moon and planets so far, but would would be interested in seeing some DSOs too. Thanks for any advice you can give me.
So I took my brand new Orion Starblast II 4.5 Equatorial Reflector telescope outside for the first time tonight. It came with a PloSSL 25mm and 10mm eyepieces. Venus was big and bright in the west just after sunset, and I was able to find it with no problem.
I started with the 25mm eyepiece just to make sure I could find Venus in the viewfinder. I did, no prob. Venus looked like a tiny dot, and I couldn’t really make out what it was. It looked like a crescent moon with the left side lit up. 🤷♂️
I popped in the 10mm lens and I was expecting a much better picture in the viewfinder, (2.5 X what the 25mm lens gave me right?) but it didn’t seem like much of a difference. I still couldn’t make out much. It looked like pretty much the same picture.
Am I expecting too much? I have a 2x Barlow and a 6.3mm and a 3.6mm lens on the way. I’m hoping the 6.3mm with the 2x Barlow will give me ~ 143x magnification vs. the 45x I had tonight, and that will produce a better picture in the viewfinder. Is there an astronomy website I can go to to see pictures of what I can expect to see with various lenses??
As per your suggestion in various videos, I'll be buying a 15mm Plossl eyepiece. Will it be useful as I already have a 40mm with 2.5x Barlow?
Hey Jason interesting video and I must say the first eyepieces I owned were from the Vixen custom 80m refractor which were pretty good quality and I knew they weren't cheap ones.
Basic ones you get in skyeatcher just gets you started and some of the more cheaper telescopes come with good eyepieces which isn't expensive. I don't throw these types of eyepieces away. Been lucky in eyepiece department even my Bnise 70mm refractor didn't come with crap eyepieces which surprised me.
Have you came across any had ones?
Take care buddy and hope you get clear skies as I've seen Jupiter few nights ago.
Hey Bushcraft, the only time I've had really bad eyepieces with my first couple of telescopes but both were only department telescopes Tasco I think and of course they were provided with H eyepieces... Yes I'm still looking forward to the gas giants, still not had a good look yet but towards the end of the month they appear from behind the trees and buildings that have been blocking them all year.. Can't wait.. Take care, clear skies buddy :)
Hello ! One question, how do you know when an eyepiece quality surpasses your main telescope quality and then you get no additional advantage on getting a more expensive eyepiece ?
I'll give you an example, I have a Celestron TrailSeeker 80 Spotting scope and a 114 LCM and I attached an Omni Ploss Celestron EP and I liked the quality of the image , however, I wouldn't know at what point an EP would be overkill ? In Celestron lineup would the limit be Omni , Ultima, Luminous? I'm kinda confused and I'm just very new to all of this
Thank you very much
Thanks again Jason.here's me thinking Plossl was a posh eyepiece maker!also one of mine has PL on it- would that be a plossl?
Hello Geoffrey your more than welcome my friend.. Plossl's are a bit posh they are certainly better than the others I mentioned not that there is anything wrong with the others apart from the H range of course.. Yes PL is plossl, hold on to it it'll be a good eyepiece.
Not necessarily true. I have cheap set of Huygens from department telescope and I used them with my 90mm Orion telescope. 25mm Hyugens performed quite well, and I was hard pressed to tell difference between the nicer Plossl eyepiece I have for that scope. 4mm Ramsden was indeed horrible. So you need to test each eyepiece to see if they are worth keeping. For me 25mm Huygens was pretty decent and well worth keeping.
Ive heard of 1n 1/4 th inch and 2 inch diameter eyepieces. Is one better for movie cameras and is one better for viewing?
Fantastic overview Jason!
Hi Avanteesh 👋
@@Astronurd Hey Mate :)
Thank you as always my friend. Clear skies.
Hi Jason. Another question... Is there an advantage or disadvantage to using a Barlow to match a lower mm eyepiece, instead of just choosing the higher magnification one to begin with? As example, would a 3X Barlow with a 12mm eyepiece be comparable with a 4mm eyepiece? I would think stacking another piece of glass into view could have disadvantages, but to use a Plossl as example, the orifice on the 4mm is quite small, so finding the sweet spot to place the eye (especially with glasses) is more of a challenge. Free holding a cellphone camera in front of the best view is quite the challenge. ...I'm a newbie, so I'm still on a steep learning curve, and it's been in the single digits fahrenheit outside at night so I'm not putting in the hours (so am continuing research like this inquiry). ANYWAY, any insight would be appreciated. I did get some excellent lunar photos simply stacking a 2x Barlow with a 10mm eyepiece on the Orion 4.5, holding the iPhone by hand, and using the phone to enlarge the snapshots. (...and I found an 8" Orion Dob that I pick up on Monday). Thanks for all of your videos.
Old simple 4 lens elements or less eyepiece designs, like Plossl, have their eye relief always shorter than focal length.
So using Barlow allows getting same magnification, while mainining eye relief of longer focal length eyepiece.
Of course adding more glass to lights path is challenge to keeping image quality, but good qualtiy Barlows have minimal effect.
Newer more complex eyepiece designs basically use built in Barlow as first part in optical path to allow longer focal length and eye relief for actual image forming optics.
I'm waiting for my first telescope, an 8" dobson with a 32mm SWA 2" eyepiece.
I wanted to buy additional eyepieces but I didn't think the Plössls would be any good. I thought it looked like the opening on the higher power plössles would be annoyingly small...
Anyway, I bought a set of red Svbony UW eyepieces instead.
So I take it my fear of the plössles was unwarranted?
Plössls have short eye relief under 10mm focal lenght, I don't like them at those focal lenghts for that.
The downside of those UW is that they might might not be good with a barlow lens. Afov is less important at high magnification, focus on glass quality.
Hello Jimmy, Plossl's do get short on eye relife after about 12mm and below but that applies to most standard eyepieces.. The Svbony's you have got a great choice and should work well with your new telescope.
Help! I'm a novice and I inherited a 700 power 90mm equatorial mount telescope about 30 years ago. I've only used it once years ago and I only recently learned how to do a polar alignment, but my main issue is that I can't get the objective to focus. I only have one eyepiece at the moment, it says 25x on the side, and that eyepiece works well in the spotting scope, but I just can't get the objective to focus. I the eyepiece the problem?
4:20 I have a uncitted 1" 25mm Zeiss Huygens in my collection. say this again^^.
2 inch kellners are good eyepieces if you can use 2 inch
Thank you Bro 👌
@ragavrebel you're welcome, my friend . Thanks for watching.
Just got my 8'' dob last week, and was wondering about the 4 perpendicular lines you see on everything, being stars or planets... is this caused by cheap low-quality eyepieces? does this go away when buying more expensive lenses? I want to get used a bit on the telescope before starting to buy new more expensive ones, so using kinda cheap celestron eyepieces for the time being...
that maybe from the secondary mirror holder... light is being diffracted. That's the thing with newtonian telescopes. They get the perpendicular diffraction spikes on bright objects.
@@tulgaericson4550 oh I see... That sucks :(
@@frapell Some like it, some hate it...but dobson is the best bang for the buck! one of my fav telescope designs :D
is pronounced "Hoygien" for Christiaan Huygens
Hey! I'm a beginner with a nice bresser telescope which came with an H4 and H20 eyepiece, as well as an erecting eyepiece 1.5x and a Barlow 3x lens. My issue is with chasing whatever I'm looking at, especially using the H4, because the earth spins way too fast for me to get a good look at something. Once it gets out of view it's very hard to find it again, and even with patience it becomes frustrating when you are chasing Saturn for 2 and a half hours just for a quick shaky glance. Is there any way to fix this, or do you have any tips for the earth's spin being an issue?
Any telescope coming with best before date expired two centuries ago Huygens eyepieces definitely isn't nice and is more toward hobby killer category.
Also mounts of such telescopes will likely start shaking just from giving it too stern look.
Now eyepieces would be easy to replace assuming standard 1.25" barrel size, but mount is far harder to fix.
There isn't much sense in getting new mount for what's propably very low end telescope. (for telescope upgrade you would want Dobson for most performance per money)
@@tuunaes thank you very much for the help!
@@saythealphabet776 Already basic Plössls would be huge upgrade from Huygens with 2/3 wider view.
Though also shorter focal length Plössls have crappy short eye relief.
What kind budget you would have and what's the precise model of current telescope?
@@tuunaes Bresser GmbH Skylux 60/700 AZ. Zenit mirror. The diameters of my eyepieces are 31.7 mm, and focus distance is 700 mm. It's a low-end made in china telescope but I guess it does the trick for planetary observation. Do you think I could see deep sky objects I couldn't before with a new eyepiece? My budget for eyepieces is less than 80$, I don't want to spend too much on them but I still want something better than the Huygean ones
H EP..He Said They Were Designed 100’s and 100’s Of Years Ago😂😂Ive Been Binging Your Channel All Night,and Really Enjoying It,You Have A New Sub,Ive Never Owned A K Or Below,My Scopes Came With Plossl,Or None😂,I Would Like A Recommendation For A Diagonal And Some EP For My Evostar80ed,That Santa Hooked Me Up With(Finished My DS Set Up,Evostar80ed,Evoguide50ed,On The Eqm35Pro❤🔭❤️But Also Own An AR102/1000,A 6Se,Mak90,and The 114LCM Was My 1st Goto Abou 6Years Ago,and Still Works Great,I Use It For Solar❤,As Far As $ On The EP..🤔🤔Between $50-$100 Would Be Good,Im Not Getting It All At 1 Time,Just Would Like To Be Set Up By Spring,April/Mayish,Thank You..Stay Safe,God Bless,and Clear Skies🙏🏻❤️✨🔭🌏
How do you feel about those super 10 and super 25 eyepieces? Those are the exact ones my telescope came with (I got it used from a guy that got it used). Should I replace them?
@klodno6164: I got the same ones with my telescope.....the 10mm was crap but the 25mm was "useable" but not perfect. I've upgraded both of them now to a 9mm Baader Morpheus and an Explore Scientific 26mm......both are a massive improvement.
I now realize why my barska 90060 675 power was so cheap!....
Thanks!
Thank you Matthew.. Can't tell you enough how much I appreciate that my friend.
@@smalloptics753 👍 Love the videos bubba keep em' coming
why mono audio (left channel only) ??
Can anyone guide me to a link or video that can assist a beginner with selecting a good eyepiece for viewing planets properly because I realize the majority of these content creators are just rambling on leaving the viewer more confused that before they started watching their videos, I recently got a Celestron StarSense explorer lt 127 az, viewing the moon with it is good, observing planets on the other hand isn’t that impressive, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Are celestron and Orion good brands?
@ryanfahrne5318: Yes, but I think Orion have now gone out of business .
I have a telescope eyepiece with F=20mm on them. What does F mean?
@BakingSodaVibes: Focal length in millimetres.
My Eyepiece does not have a Numbers. Just 26mm
@tupaicindjeke275: That means that the focal length of the eyepiece is 26mm.
?