What I've concluded after many years? What makes the most difference is not the pedigree of the eyepiece, but the MAGNIFICATION. Most deep sky observers use too little rather than too much. Usually way too little for best results.
What I've concluded after many years? What makes the most difference is not the pedigree of the eyepiece, but the MAGNIFICATION. Most deep sky observers use too little rather than too much. Usually way too little for best results.
Rod,
That's the truth.
My best view of NGC7775 was at well over 200X. Why someone would be looking at it at such a low power, I don't know.
I see it all the time, though--people using really low powers to look at faint deep sky objects.
It could be a carry-over from when the same observer had a much smaller scope and had to use the lower powers (you can get used to viewing at low powers); or it could be the movements of their scopes are quite sticky and jerky, making high powers very hard to use; or it could be the use of narrow field eyepieces, where expressing a preference for a larger true field might lead to the choice of a lower-than-optimum magnification.
Don, I think for a lot of us it comes from our novice days when our Jedi masters preached HIGH POWER IS EVIL, PADAWAN! lol
That, and steady skies were for high power views of double stars and the planets. The view of deep sky objects wouldn't be effected by poor seeing because they're already fuzzy...
Howard
30-inch f/2.7 alt-az Newtonian
https://sites.google.com/site/howardbanichhomepage/
https://sites.google.com/site/sprays...pemirrors/home
Contributing Editor, Sky & Telescope magazine
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