6mm vs 8mm

[My 2 Stars]

I'm looking to pull more detail for planets. I was thinking of a 6mm (maybe Delos) or 8mm. I know there is a decent amount of mag between them, but being so close in mm, would the 6mm be a better choice than an 8mm? Or would you actually have both in your case?

[Ozman13]

I also would be torn between the two. I have an AD12 also f/4.7 and use my ES 6.7mm 82 and it works great. I'm sure the 6mm would be good but I would be tempted for the 8mm which also would work very well, but there may be occasions when you could barlow the 8mm but likely never the 6mm.

[Wingsfan81]

The 8mm will give you 150x magnification which will be perfect magnification for Jupiter. The 6mm will give you 200 which sometimes is too much for Jupiter but great for Saturn which is less seeing-sensitive.

[dpickles55]

John,

I use both a 6mm Delos and 8mm Ethos in an XT8.
If I had to choose just one, it would be the 150X,
which works well on planets and globs, getting much more use in the DOB.
The 6mm sees more use in the 4 inch refractor at 119X.
Hope this helps,

David

[stargazer769]

I have both focal lengths in my eyepiece case. The 8mm is a widefield Hyperion which gives me 1mm exit pupil, which along with my 13mm Hyperion are my most used DSO eyepieces. But for the Moon and planets, I use my Abbes, which are a 9mm, 6mm and 4mm Abbe. The 6mm by far gets the most use, but the 4mm is brand new and what time I've had on it so far, I'm very impressed with it.

For information, my scope, a C6R is the same focal length as your XT10 and provides the same magnification. I've owned an XT10 many years ago, and used the same eyepiece setup then - 13mm and 8mm for main DSO work, and short f/l Abbes for planetary. My 6mm Abbe was my most used planetary eyepiece with my XT10 too.

[Robrj]

You'll probably use the 8mm more than the 6mm but I think both would be a good option. I have a 9mm ES 100* and a 5.5mm ES 100*. The 9mm will see more use as it's a little less sensitive to seeing. But the 5.5mm is great when seeing is good. Plus, I can really zoom in on the Trapezium in Orion. I like the 100* view in higher magnifications as things tend to stay in the view longer and I don't have to move it as often.