What Eyepiece Should I get?

Question

I have the Meade 70-AZ AR, and I lost my 9mm eyepiece, so all I have now is my 25 mm. So I was thinking, which one should i buy, since it looks like I am getting another one. My focal length is 700mm, so right now I am only getting 28x magnification. I was thinking less something below 9mm (8, 7, 6...). What would you choose.

Answer 1

13mm Televue Ethos. It's got a nice 100° field of view. It'll cost a bit more than your scope though. I'm assuming your scope will only accept 1.25" eyepieces. Orion (http:/www.telescope.com) has some very nice flat field edge on ones. They cost $100 each. The 16 or 19mm might be worth checking out.

Answer 2

Your telescope has a maximum magnification of 140. To get this magnification you'd use a 5mm eyepiece. There's no point in getting anything with a focal length less than that.

But at 140x, the image will be very dim. You won't be able to see much.

You're much better keeping the magnification to about 80 or so, as this will give you a brighter image. For 80x you need a 9mm eyepiece!

You might also consider going the other direction and getting something like a 40mm eyepiece, which will give you a magnification of 17x, and a really bright image. This is great for looking at star fields such as the pleiades, open clusters and so on.