Eyepiece for DSO viewing?

July 26, 2011 4:02 PM

Best eyepiece for viewing deep space objects with a Zhumell Z12 dobsonian reflector telescope?

Any ideas?

posted by nurgle to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

Telescopes like yours, with very low focal ratio numbers, require exotic eyepiece designs to produce sharp images across a wide field of view. Nagler eyepieces perform beautifully but are very expensive. For LOTS less $$$ you might try a Konig and find it performs well enough.

I've been happy with my University Optics 32mm Konig II (though it helps that my scope has a longer focal ratio). An updated version is the second eyepiece on this page. It's the one with the red background. I'd get the 25mm or the 32mm.

It needs to have a 2" focuser.

I should confess that I've been out of the market for 15 years now, so there may be newer designs that I don't know about
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:49 PM on July 26, 2011

I'm always like Panoptics due to the bang per buck. Naglers are great but expensive. I've found some good deals on Astromart so even Naglers are reasonable at times. I've bought several used eyepieces from Astromart over the years and have always been pleased with them. I wouldn't buy on ebay.

Design matters but so does power. I personally don't go for the lowest possible power. I doubt my eyes open that much as pupils don't dilate as much as one gets older. I also find a little more power increases contrast, especially on smaller faint objects like many galaxies.

The lowest I go on my f5 scopes is a 27mm panoptic. But I more frequently use a 22mm Panoptic or a 14mm Meade UWA (close to a 13mm old style Nagler) as my general purpose eyepieces for looking at DSOs. According to one website, your scope is an f4.9 so this is pretty close to mine.
posted by jclarkin at 12:30 PM on July 27, 2011