Scattered Thoughts . . .

Kit eyepiece, far left, with three upgrades to the right. I feel as though I'm always trying to persuade newcomers to astronomy about the importance of purchasing something better than the kit telescope eyepieces that come with most new telescopes.  My advice, however, usually seems to fall on deaf ears until, that is, the new telescope owner eventually gets to peer through a better eyepiece with their own eyes.  Then they are flabbergasted with mixed emotion, saying, "Wow...  I can't believe the difference!" as they smack their forehead with the palm of their hand instantly realizing all the time they wasted while dragging their feet about purchasing new, better eyepieces. You see, these eyepieces that come packaged with new telescopes, generally speaking, are tiny, difficult to see through and less-than-sharp junk that border on useless.  I recently realized that if I write about this and show some photos,  at least   these people would be able to see the

The eyepieces I had ordered last week for our little cheap telescope for the kids to use arrived yesterday afternoon... finally! These are relatively low-cost eyepieces but far better than the cheap, useless Celestron eyepieces that came with this telescope.  Since the moon was still in the sky this morning (again), I tested these new eyepieces by viewing the moon. These eyepieces looked great and are a tremendous step up from the original Celestron eyepieces so this was a good, low cost solution. They are not as good as my larger Baader Hyperion eyepieces but they are just fine for this cheap little telescope. The view of the moon this morning was quite nice. The three smaller eyepieces to the right, below... Orion Expanse eyepieces... are the eyepieces to be used with this small scope. The larger Baader Hyperion eyepieces to the left are for my better telescope and are quite good! I'm now looking forward to some clear night skies!