Starmaster 7" eyepiece recomendations?

I used to have a 7" teleport and found that switching between widely
dissimilar eyepieces could affect the balance much more than on a larger
scope. I am not sure about the Starmaster, but you might want to consider
trying out eyepieces to see if this happens to you. Initially I went with
Radians and felt they worked well. I had a 22 Pan I took the 2" skirt off
of for wide field views(and solar) and its weight was close to the Radian so
it wasn't a problem, but I didn't use it very often.

It is a hassle having to deal with counter weights as you are bouncing
between Plossols and Orthos and Naglars etc.

I don't know the focal length of your scope, but the max I found useful was
about 250X, sure theory would be 350X, but for me the images start getting
dim, guiding is harder and the sky doesn't support it very often. So I
would have an eyepiece that unbarlowed gave me something in the 300-350
range max and don't expect to use it a whole lot.

With a fl of 1000 I used the 22 Panoptic, 14 Radian, 8 Radian and 5 Radian.
(until I replaced them with the Pentax XLs which I like better) with the
teleport. This gave me 45, 71, 125, 250X. It seemed like a good range and
like I said I didn't use the 22 very often. The remaining 3 seemed to give
me a useable range of views.

I am not a big fan of barlows, the only time I use them is on the planets
and if the seeing is really good. Seeing which supports 50X per inch( or
even 300X) doesn't happen very often(at least for me), but I have 2X and 3X
TV barlows just in case.

Just my $0.02

Derek

--
Clear, Dark Skies

Bill Foley

David,

I have a 7" Teleport. It is limited to 1.25" eyepieces, so you have other
options, but here are my three eyepieces:

16mm Nagler
9mm Nagler
3-6 Nagler zoom.

I tried using a 30mm Celestron Ultima as my widefield eyepiece, but the view
wasn't much wider than the new Nagler 16mm. Magnification and contrast were less
than the Nagler, so I don't use the Celestron--nevertheless it is a great
eyepiece. I make a lot of use of a pair of them in my Binoviewer.

The 3-6 Nagler zoom is terrific. It takes the place of several eyepieces and the
views are crisp with high contrast. (My only complaint is that the Teleport has
a helical focuser, not the best choice with a zoom.)

--Jeff

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Dave and Evan--

yes--i was wondering how anyone could get so lucky as to find one of
these for sale! as for the 19 mm pan and the 14 uwa--i have both and
use them in both a TV-ren-101 and a 14.5" Starmaster. i've found that
the 14 mm uwa is my most preferred ep in both scopes. yes, it's way off
being parfocal with the remainder of my TV ep's, but it offers almost
the same real fov as the 19 mm pan, but at a bit higher mag's. this
almost always improves contrast as well as ability to pick out detail.
i highly recommend it.

clear, dark skies--

mark d.

Congratulations on obtaining your starmaster. It is a great piece if
equipment that you will love. I'm amazed when I hear that someone has
managed to get one. I'm sure there are other telescope purchases in my
future, probably a bigger Starmaster, but they'll have to pry the 7" from my
cold dead fingers.

The 27 pano is a great match for this scope. I originally had purchased the
35, but returned it within a few days for the 27. The problem wasn't weight
or anything size related. I found that the 35 mm's low magnification views
under my light polluted skies were simply too washed out. The 27 seems to
strike a good balance between wide field, contrast, price, etc.

Another, less costly consideration would be the 30mm Ultima from Celestron.
It costs much less than the Panoptics and while the field is smaller, it is
still a very nice match with this scope.

My most used eyepiece is a 19mm Panoptic. I find it to be an extremely
comfortable eyepiece that I can stare through all night. In fact, if I could
have only one EP with this scope, the 19 would be it. It gives a
satisfyingly wide field for sweeping and can be barlowed to go deeper.

Getting into the mid-range, I haven't seen the 15 Panoptic, but you can't go
wrong with the 14mm Meade Ultrawide or the 14mm Pentax XL. I've tried both
and one will likely be my next EP purchase.

Getting into higher powers, I like (but don't love) the 9mm Vixen Lanthanum.
It delivers lots of eye relief, an important consideration if you wear
glasses (I don't). Personally I find the views are a bit dim through it --
very sharp stars, but a definite overall darkness that bugs me.

I acquired a 7mm Nagler (the old version) a few months ago and I have
really enjoyed it. The 144x magnification and nice FOV are great when you
want to push things a bit on DSOs. You feel like your falling into a pool of
stars on some of the showpiece clusters.

Lastly, I have a 5mm Radian that really only comes out when I want to look
at the planets. At a hair over 200x to start with, it's a bit much for DSO
and a bit underpowered for planets. This is especially true with this
scope -- it is capable of remarkable feats of magnification when sky
conditions are right.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

-Evan Sirof