The Right Eye piece

[114lzr1]

Hi i am new at astronomy but have always been interested in the sky. I Just recently bought a Celestron Astromaster 114 eq Reflector Good starter scope. But my Question is what is the best eye piece to use for the best magnification and clarity??? Thanks.

[OleCuss]

Tough one.

Most of the time you are going to be using magnification of less than 100x with that telescope. Under very good conditions you may be able to get 200x. Under nearly magical conditions you may be able to go a bit higher than that.

With a focal length of 1,000mm this means you should probably concentrate on eyepieces with a focal length of 10mm or more. Still, it might be nice to have a 2x Barlow to use with that 10mm eyepiece if you had superb viewing conditions.

So the net effect is that you should probably be sticking with eyepieces in the 10mm-25mm range.

I believe your telescope is a Bird-Jones design. You can get decent views with that design, but it really isn't a sufficiently good design to recommend getting the best (and expensive) eyepieces to go with it. Therefore I'd be recommending you get some good Plossl eyepieces and maybe consider getting something like some GSO Superviews from Agena Astro.

FWIW

[Bob327]

I agree buy a 2x barlow and a few eyepieces between 10 and 17... then yuse the barlow to push up the magnification on nights when you really can push up the magnification... As old cuss stated I own a lot of telescopes (more then I care to admit to) but its rare that I actually go up past 200x no matter which scope I am using...from 4 to 11 inch ones...

Bob G

[RhetoricCamel]

I have the same telescope, I bought a kit of eyepiece which you can see listed in my signature below. I use the 32mm 95% of the time. Maybe the 12.5 for some things like small star clusters, planetary nebula, the moon, and planets. Sometimes the 6mm makes it's way into my scope on a good clear night when looking at planets, but that's about it.

So I recommend a 32mm, and a 12.5mm and a 2x barlow. That should be more than enough for you to have fun with and get the most out of your scope. Barlow the 32mm to make it a 16mm, barlow the 12.5mm to make it a 6.25mm. I would also suggest a good moon filter. For the scope I'd just stick with Plossl brand eyepieces, no need to dish out $80+ on a single eyepiece when you can spend that same amount on the two I recommend plus a barlow. I'd also pay attention to eye relief, I personally like 15-20mm eye relief which also makes my 32, 12.5, and barlow my favorite pieces.