
If you want to see the fine detail of each planet without the moons, then you’ll want to jump up to around 380.The telescope have a great field of view making your telescope a good telescope for viewing planets. The absolute magnification that you’ll want to be able to see the planets along with their moons is around 180. What’s the best magnification to see planets? So for most telescopes, that means you’ll need an eyepiece of between 17-13mm. Remember, this magnification is the combination of your telescope focal length and your eyepiece focal length. You will need to increase the magnification if you want to see separate individual details of each ring. This is enough to see them separate from the planet. You can make out the rings of Saturn with a magnification of 180. What magnification do you need to see the rings of Saturn? You’ll want to choose one that will fit your telescope and give you a magnification of around 180. The best eyepiece will depend on your telescope. Frequently Asked Questions Which eyepiece is best for viewing planets? Plössl eyepieces are a good option for fast Newtonians and similar telescopes. Kellner/MA are good for long focal ratio telescopes. The same eyepiece won’t perform the same on different telescopes. It’s important to match the type of lens to your telescope. With more lenses, you often get wider angle views and a more comfortable eye relief.

Eyepieces with fewer lenses are generally cheaper and will deliver more light to your eye. Generally speaking, the different types of eyepiece have different numbers of lenses inside them. As long as the barrel sizes match, you can combine any eyepiece with any telescope. The good news is that you can mix and match with no problem. BrandĪ lot of people worry that the brand of their eyepiece should match the brand of the telescope. However, if you have a 2” telescope, there is a good chance that it came with an adapter to allow you to use the smaller size of eyepiece. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use them together. You will need to make sure that the barrel size of your eyepiece matches the size of your telescope. The barrel size of an eyepiece will always be given in inches. An eyepiece set that comes with color filters can offer you a lot more detailed and high contrast views of the planets you’re interested in, so they can be a nice addition to have as well. Using a color filter can boost the contrast of different features of the object you’re looking at. When you’re looking at the planets, it can be hard to focus on the details that you’re interested in. Beyond that, you’ll lose detail and contrast. As a rule of thumb, you take your aperture size in inches and multiply it by 50.įor example, if your telescope has an aperture of 4”, then the maximum useful magnification will be 200x. You can work out the maximum useful magnification for a telescope based on its aperture size. If your image is blurry or dim, then you’re just going to magnify that.

There is no point magnifying an image past the point where you are able to make out detail. That means that a 20mm eyepiece will give you a magnification of 50x, but a 10mm eyepiece will give you 100x.

As an example, let assume your telescope has a focal length of 1000mm. What this means is that a smaller eyepiece will give you a larger magnification. Magnification = Telescope Focal LengthEyepiece Focal Length You can calculate the magnification as follows: This is why eyepieces don’t tell you what magnification they will give you. To calculate the magnification of a given eyepiece, you also need to consider the focal length of your telescope. However, the focal length of the eyepiece alone does not decide how much magnification you’ll get. The number you’re interested in here is the one that is in mm. This is what allows you to change the magnification of the image. When you change the size of your eyepiece you’re changing the focal length. What to Consider When Buying an Eyepiece for Viewing Planets Focal Length
Best telescope eyepiece for viewing planets full#
It’s a great option for anyone who is looking for a full set of eyepieces but doesn’t want to spend an arm and a leg buying them individually. It’s foam-lined and has a solid exterior, so it will keep your eyepieces safe. So this is a great kit for making observations of the solar system.Īll the pieces come in a handy carry case. This is necessary as the moon is a very bright object and can flood your telescope with too much light. This decreases the transmission of light from the moon without applying a color filter. This will give you a filter that should be effective for enhancing the detail of most of the interesting features of the planets in our solar system. The filters that come with the set are in the three primary colors.
