10 replies to this topic

[ed_turco]

I can only conclude that prospective buyers can get a good set of eyepieces at great savings. Statements about cheap low quality eyepieces made in China are not necessarily true! And remember that just about anybody’s eyepieces come from China these days! Finally, in this COVID era, there is more good news -- a beginning ATM or amateur astronomer with limited resources can get this eyepiece set and begin his hobby better equipped than he would think. I think it is better to have a set of eyepieces than a single high-priced eyepiece. Isn’t having only one magnification a little boring?

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[Eclipsed]

 Ed,  What brand are those big 2" 40mm and 30mm eyepieces?

 

Thanks,  Martyn

[Starman1]

Ed,

What happened to all the comments about your wonderful article?

 

Ah, another thread, sorry.

Edited by Starman1, 13 November 2020 - 01:56 PM.

[Astro Canuck]

 I have only a Meade 9mm - gives a soft image though.. all my other eyepieces 40mm-10mm plossls are Soviet-Russian made TAL. they give nice views and happy with.  

[mr.otswons]

 I have only a Meade 9mm - gives a soft image though.. all my other eyepieces 40mm-10mm plossls are Soviet-Russian made TAL. they give nice views and happy with.  

I am pleasantly surprised with eyepieces that came with my TAL-1. Multicoated and clear, very nice barlow too!

[Stargazer3236]

I bought a set of SvBony wide fields, 20mm, 15mm, 9mm and 6mm with AFOV of 68 degrees. I paid $130 for the set. Now, I normally would not use eyepieces as my favorite way of observing is with my ZWO cameras and my laptop. However, I decided to buy a set so I could use them during object acquisition before inserting the camera. I would say that they are clean FOV. Not many aberrations,  Hardly any coma and near tack sharp edge to edge viewing. I am surprised. I could afford naglers, but since I don't need them, why buy them?

[AA5TB]

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m a visual observer and not much of an astrophotographer at this time. I agree about the usefulness of Plossl eyepieces.

 

I recently purchased the forbidden Celestron 1.25” Eyepiece and Accessory Kit. Amongst many other useful items the kit contains five Plossl, 4 element, 52 degree eyepieces. I have a new 102 mm, f/4.5 achromatic refractor telescope and I wanted to see what range of eyepiece focal lengths were practical in such a fast scope. My existing EP set are 0.965”. I don’t have anyone to swap with so I figured this would be a good way to determine what focal lengths of “real” eyepieces I could purchase in the future.

 

To my surprise it turns out that I’m completely satisfied with the quality of these Plossls. They are well constructed and their standard fine threads mesh smoothly with the included filters. The images are sharp and aberration free all the way to the edges of the field. Their eye relief is fine except for maybe the largest one. The only negatives are that the 32 mm exhibits too much eye relief and suffers from blackouts or “kidney beans” and the 6 mm doesn’t buy me anymore detail as probably expected. Both “defects” may be the result of their combination with my f/4.5 telescope and not necessarily the eyepieces themselves. 
 

My only comparison is with my Bresser 20 mm Plossl 5 element eyepiece with a 70mm degree AFOV. It gives me beautiful DSO views but with slight comma astigmatism on the outer 20% of the FOV. Granted, since I don’t have any $250+ eyepieces to compare too in this scope I may not know what I’m missing. However, except for greater AFOV I don’t know what could be improved upon compared to these good Plossls that I have. I am open to enlightenment. 

Edited by AA5TB, 14 November 2020 - 07:13 PM.

[RichA]

Reality is, it's cheap to manufacture spherical even aspheric lenses today which has drastically reduced the price of these eyepieces.  An eyepiece like the Svbony 60 deg. aspheric would in the past cost $100.00, but now a set of 3 is $27.00.  However, there are idiosyncrasies that some of these eyepieces have that higher level eyepieces don't.  Some are bad at the edge except in longer telescopes.  Some have oddball reflections.  But on the whole, they are a major step up  from the ancient Huygens and Ramsden eyepieces of years past, wider fields, better eye relief.

[ralphieboy]

Thanks for the article. I agree with your premise in general. I have the SV 4, 10 and 23mm aspheric eyepieces; now rebranded by Meade. I believe the 10mm was the weakest. I also have the 9mm 68 and a 16mm clone which are surprisingly good in my Meade infinity, SCT and Mak. I also tried the zoom which was narrow but actually good and crisp at the low to mid powers.

 

I often use an off brand 30mm /80 which works very well as a finder in my Dob and cost only a fraction of the premium brands. I have a few high-grades which seem to perform noticeably better than the off brands especially in my faster scopes; a Meade 14mm /84; 20 RG, ES 24mm/68 and a Badder Zoom. If I had to make hard choices I would keep the Zoom and the 2 Meade’s but replace the rest with off brands.

[Mark1954]

ED,

I enjoyed reading your post about eyepieces. I am a newby in search of the best, relatively inexpensive eyepieces. Saw Saturn for the first time and now I'm hooked. Though I could see the rings detached from the planet, I could see no colors, maybe a moon.

Jupiter I could see 4 moons ( one was way far from the rest ) but no color, no red spot, no etc.

My Dobsonian Skywatcher 10" came with 2 eyepieces ( 10m and 25mm ). I got a collimation kit with a laser and Cheshire. Pretty easy to align the mirrors. Believe I got that.

Question is eyepieces. I doubt the quality of those that came with the scope. Don't know if a quality 10mm will see more than a cheap 10mm. Thinking about a 2x Barlow. I would like to see some things outside solar system. P.S. I know its not the Hubble, though I was hoping.LOL

Any advice you or anyone has, please help.

[JimmySL]

I was looking through the web trying to find the answer and luckily found your article! Very informative, thanks!