My Equipment - Eyepieces

I want to start by stating something, just because a telescope is bigger doesn't mean the magnification is higher. This was actually news to me as I  had always assumed that big telescopes were "good" because they had high levels of magnification but it turns out I am a numpty and they are good because the bigger aperture means they can capture more light and provide more stable views at the higher magnifications. All I can say is that my Physics with Space Science and Technology degree truly must have been a huge waste of time as I hadn't realised this!

Anyway, the magnification is actually to do with the focal length of the telescope and the eyepiece being utilised as shown in the lovely formula below.

So with the telescope having a fixed focal lenght it is down to the eyepieces to determine the magnification. My telescope has a focal length of 1500mm and it came with 10mm and 25mm eyepieces which meant I could get 150x and 60x magnification. As an additional note I also got a 2x Barlow with the telescope which is an optical lens that alters the focal length by a factor of 2 therefore I can actually double by magnification to 300x and 120x if I wanted.

Of course this all sounds wonderful but the problem is that the higher magnifications aren't always so great as they reduce the field of view and highlight atmospheric and mounting stability issues. In all honesty I have probably used the 25mm eyepiece most so far due to the wider field of view it gives me. However, it is probably also due in part to the fact that I didn't think the 10mm provided with the telescope isn't the best quality. In fact just this week I bought an 8mm BST Explorer eyepiece and have already found the view so much clearer than the supplied 10mm when looking at Jupiter and the Moon.

So basically my current collection of Eyepieces are:-
10mm Stock Skywatcher
25mm Stock Skywatcher
2x Stock Skywatcher Barlow
8mm BST Explorer

This gives me an okay range of views at the moment but I do want to buy a 32mm in the future as this will supposedly give me the best field of view for my telescope. The large field of view is good for some large deep space objects which I can't always fit fully into my current eyepieces. I also may need to buy some sort of foam filled case in the future as I am not sure lugging them around in a Asda Carrier bag is the safest thing to do.

One thing I have noticed about Eyepieces is that they can be very expensive! Some of the high end ones aren't far off the cost of my actual telescope which is rather eye watering. However from what I can understand these are more often needed for telescopes with a low focal ratio (Telescope Focal Length / Telescope Aperture). As I have reasonably high focal ratio I think that I will stick with the "good" lower value eyepieces such as the 8mm BST I have already bought.