Monday, October 12, 2009

Eyepieces

When I was young, eyepieces in my little corner of the universe was nothing more than an accessory to my telescope. As I got older I discovered that eyepieces are what makes the telescope. A lousy eyepiece will make the best telescope a hunk of junk. On the other hand a top rated eyepiece will turn a hunk of junk telescope into something worth while.

It all has to do with how the light gets focused to your eye. The telescope only initiate the process, the eyepiece does all the work in narrowing that cone of light into something your brain can process. So what I recommend if you have couple hundred dollars and you are itching for a couple of eyepieces, then stop, look at what you've got and put that money toward one eyepiece that you need. It is interesting to see the difference a good eyepiece can make on a telescope. A 25mm stock eyepiece that comes with a new telescope will produce an image quite dreadful compared to a good Televue Panoptic or Radian. Meade, has their series 5000 which are nice upgrades to stock eyepieces as well as Orion and Celestron.

Lastly, don't be too distraught about prices. Eyepieces don't go bad, and unless they get damaged by dropping them they will last forever. So they hold their value for quite some time.