Eyepiece Preferences

I recently received my new TSA102 Super APO. I want to build an eyepiece set for this scope. I currently have a set of Meade 5000 series 60 degree FOV eyepieces. I'm looking for consensus on eyepiece choices to bring out optimum viewing with the TSA. Should I stick with Tak eyepieces? Or, go with something like the Televue Naglers?

Now, the TSA hasn't seen first light yet and I have no experience with the Tak or Televue eyepieces, but your experiences can send me in the right direction.

Thanks
Scott

Louis Scott Busby said:
I recently received my new TSA102 Super APO. I want to build an eyepiece set for this scope. I currently have a set of Meade 5000 series 60 degree FOV eyepieces. I'm looking for consensus on eyepiece choices to bring out optimum viewing with the TSA. Should I stick with Tak eyepieces? Or, go with something like the Televue Naglers?

Now, the TSA hasn't seen first light yet and I have no experience with the Tak or Televue eyepieces, but your experiences can send me in the right direction.

There's no reason to think that Takahashi eyepieces are inherently better mated to the telescope than any other brand. If a telescope produces a well-corrected image, any good eyepiece can be used to magnify it. It's not like a H-alpha scope, where you can argue that an eyepiece can be optimized for the H-alpha wavelength.

Which eyepiece you get depends on what you want to use it for. For DSO observing, sure, Naglers are quite good. I'm not a big ultra-wide eyepiece sort of guy myself, but I've looked through Naglers, and they are definitely useful for giving that wide apparent field of view. (And true field of view, too--lots of DSOs show up at higher magnifications, and Naglers allow you to get that and a fairly wide swath of sky too.)

On the other hand, if you're observing the planets and you have a driven mount, you might be more concerned about the center of the field than how big the field is. I think the Radians are pretty good in this respect, as are any of the Abbe orthos; for those more exotic-minded among us, you might try a monocentric. Doesn't Thomas Back sell some of those?

Anyway, my advice is to find the kind of power and field you want to use, and then get the best eyepiece you can afford at that power and field. Don't feel like you have to worry about full coverage of the range of focal lengths. Personally, I'd rather observe than be switching eyepieces all the time.

Scott,

Congratulations. I have had my TSA102 about a month now and am increasingly impressed with its performance. My eps for it are:

35mm Panoptic
24mm Panoptic
3.5mm, 5mm, 7mm, 9mm, and 13mm Nagler Type 6.

I find these eps give me a very nice range of magnification, are well corrected and give ample eye relief. Of course, there are many other eps that will work, too, but this set meets my needs very well.

Best wishes,

Hey all,

Thanks for the comments. You guys nailed pretty much what I was thinking anyway.

Gracias