Eyepieces can make or break a telescope. Most manufacturers are pretty good about giving you sensible starter accessories for your new telescope, including one or more reasonable quality eyepieces. Some give you two eyepieces, and some also give you a Barlow lens, which doubles (usually) the magnification of any eyepiece used.

But it is not all about magnification. As Sir Patrick has always said, the main requirements are good telescope optics, and a stable stand (telescope mount) to hold everything steady. Magnification is secondary. Telescopes produce an image, and then different eyepieces can be inserted into the telescope focuser to magnify this image by different amounts.

Sometimes you want a low power, wide field of view. This might be to look at the whole Moon in one go, or extended objects such as the Orion Nebula or starfields in the Milky Way. You will also want progressively higher magnifications, depending on the object and other factors. For small objects such as Jupiter, Saturn , Mars etc, you wil need a higher magnification to optimise the amount of detail you can see on the disk. But there is a limit to sensible magnification. My analogy is a TV screen. If you get too close, the image gets blurry and you do not see any more detail. If you back away from the same screen, you get a sharper view, which can be more pleasing & allow more details to be seen. The earth's atmosphere is also turbulent. Magnify Jupiter 300x, and you are also magnifying the turbulence in the air. On any given night, there will be an optimum magnification for each object that will allow you to see the most detail. The more choice of magnification that you have, in general the better. However, there is no point having a suitcase full of eyepieces that don't get used very much. I know from experience that you will be better served building up a set of good quality eyepieces that covers your range of interests.

The best value basic eyepiece design these days is the Plossl design, which offers excellent colour correction & other characteristics across a moderately wide field of view.

If you wear eyeglasses, you have a choice. This choice will be affected by whether or not you have any astigmatism in your prescription. Plossl eyepieces can be difficult to use in the shorter focal lengths (below about 12mm) if you wear glasses. The distance you need to get your eye to the eyepiece to see the ful field of view inside (this is called the ‘Eye Relief and is measured in mm) gets too short. If you do not have astigmatism, you can simply take off your glasses & refocus. But even them some people do not find Plossls all that comfortable. And then when you look up from the telescope you will have to put your glasses back on to see anything. And where did you put them in the dark? Oh dear....... The solution is to get a different type of eyepiece, for you shorter focal lengths (higher magnifications). These can be found in our ‘Premium Eyepieces' section. More exotic types are available too......

Make your eyepiece selection from our extensive range:

Zoom Eyepieces

Plossl Eyepieces

Wide Angle Eyepieces

Ultra-Wide Angle Eyepieces

Premiun

Specialist Eyepieces