149 replies to this topic

[izar187]

I would also say 32mm Plossl in 1.25 inch format

 

Agreed

[Jon Isaacs]

I will nominate an eyepiece for most underrated:

 

The "Nagler Ortho."  That's what I call the 4.8mm Nagler.  The eye relief is very short though longer than a 4.8 Ortho would be.  It is very sharp, it's an excellent double-star eyepiece with a wide field of view.  

 

Jon

[GrassLakeRon]

I also want to point out another group: TMB planetaries or current clones. My esteem colleague Jon pointed them out. I bought the 5mm first. In my CC it was clear across the entire field at high mag on the moon. It also did well on Saturn and Jupiter. I then bought from another company which was cheaper, knowing I could get a dud. The 9,8,7,6mm came in a the next clear night showed me that in my CC they are beautiful. Have I tried them in my big dob, nope but I bought them just for my CC. This spring I will run them through the dob and report out. $26 a piece is hard to pass.

[Jon Isaacs]

The TMB Planetary's do get a fair amount of trash thrown at them, probably because of over hype in the past.

 

For what they were, the first affordable planetary eyepieces with a decent amount of eye relief and a 60° field of view, they're pretty good.

 

Mine saw a lot of use in my NP-101. They were so hot for doubles but the 4 mm with the GSO Barlow in the 1.5 x mode provided 200x and was sharp right to the edge. With it in the 2x mode, that was 270x, enough for most close doubles.

 

I replaced the with some more over achievers, the 12 mm, 8 mm and 5 mm Astro-Tech Paradigms. The 3.2 mm is not so sharp off-axis at F/5.4, it's about like the 3.2 mm TMB.

 

Jon

[Dobs O Fun]

The EP I have that I noticed that is not favored by some is the XCel-LX 18mm. It works very well in the f5.9 8" dob.

Not as much mag like the 9mm but closer to the 25mm I have. It fills in nicely.

[saemark30]

Was using the Nagler 4.8mm last night and it is sharp across the entire field and provides high contrast views of the moon and planets and as mentioned double stars.

Same goes for the Nagler 7mm T1 perhaps less lateral color and distortion than the T6 but less transmission.

Edited by saemark30, 03 March 2025 - 10:34 AM.

[25585]

There are many "under the radar" eyepieces, good but lower profile, some mentioned in this thread. Sieberts, Russells are examples. Any microscope eyepiece also, the same for top brand spotting scope eyepieces. 
 

Some seeming ubiquitous brands have decent eyepieces, overlooked as budget. Svbony, Orion, Meade, Celestron as examples. Though re-branding and form factor changes are looked down on, that does not mean their optics are necessarily bad. 
 

[Jon Isaacs]

The EP I have that I noticed that is not favored by some is the XCel-LX 18mm. It works very well in the f5.9 8" dob.

Not as much mag like the 9mm but closer to the 25mm I have. It fills in nicely.

 

The XCel-LXs, the Meade HD-60s and some focal lengths of the Paradigms are undertated IMHO.

 

I think they lose points because of the 60° AFoV but they are quite sharp across the field and for me, despite having 100° eyepieces, 60° is wide enough to feel wide.

 

Jon

[izar187]

60° is wide enough to feel wide.

___________________

 

Agreed

Particularly if the 60º is easy to look though.

[25585]

The XCel-LXs, the Meade HD-60s and some focal lengths of the Paradigms are undertated IMHO.

 

I think they lose points because of the 60° AFoV but they are quite sharp across the field and for me, despite having 100° eyepieces, 60° is wide enough to feel wide.

 

Jon

Yet Delites are only 62 AFOV....

[Jon Isaacs]

Yet Delites are only 62 AFOV....

 

 

Give it up.  

 

Jon

 

 

[CrazyPanda]

The 7mm X-Cel LX (6.5mm) is a very sharp eyepiece. It's light and easy to look through. The only point of detraction is you can see glare from Moon reflecting off some internal surface in the eyepiece.

 

Otherwise, it's a very competent planetary eyepiece and I keep it alongside my Delos and DeLites. It feels a very narrow gap right around the typical optimum for my scope and skies.

 

7mm is 282x i my 14.7"

 

6mm is 330x.

 

Very often when 7 looks excellent, 6 is a wee bit too much for the conditions.

 

That's when the 6.5mm X-Cel LX comes out for 304x, and it works beautifully.

Edited by CrazyPanda, 03 March 2025 - 12:36 PM.

[BillinBallard]

I want to put a word in for the often overlooked TV Plossls. Shortly after being introduced in 1980, they became an industry standard for quality and performance. They became common, and taken for granted in the pursuit of a wider and wider field of view.  Sure, eye relief gets tight when we get down to the short focal lengths, but you can count on getting a sharp, contrasty workhorse of an eyepiece without breaking the bank.  
 

Among the Naglers, Panoptics, and Radians, is still a trusted set of smoothie plossls.  I can use these on any scope on any night and be very happy.

 

P.S.  I was going to go off on a Quixotic mission of defending  the original TMB Planetaries (particularly the 4mm) , but I’ll save that one for later.  There are other windmills to chase. 

Edited by BillinBallard, 03 March 2025 - 08:27 PM.

[GGK]

I don't know how it's rated, but one eyepiece that's usually overlooked is the 23mm Axiom LX.  Although it looks a lot like a Luminous, it's better than the Luminous optically. The LX is pretty easy to find on the used market with a Wanted ad at a reasonable cost. 

 

The 23mm Axiom LX presents very nice images similar to the 23mm Pentax XW and 22mm Nagler T4.  It's spec'd at 82^o apparent field, 17mm eye relief, and a 34mm field stop diameter.  Because it appears to have a slightly larger true field than the 85^o 23mm XW, I wonder if the Axiom LX focal length is closer to 24mm vs. its advertised 23mm.  

 

The image in the LX is very nice with minimal astigmatism showing even in my 100mm f/4 Petzval refractor.  It has slight field curvature, which will likely go unnoticed by most users.  I find that star colors in the LX are a bit more subdued compared to the XW and Nagler, but I don't think it's from loss of light throughput because I've never consistently seen threshold stars in the XW or Nagler that were invisible in the LX.  

 

I observe without glasses, and it's easy to see the entire field of view even with the wide flat top of the eyepiece cup.  The cup raises up with a twist and is pretty large in diameter - it's raised up a little in the picture below.  If one does not like the large eye cup, it can be easily removed.  I have not removed the eye cup on mine but if it's similar to the 31mm Axiom LX, then there's a groove on the top that will accept a rubber eye guard (which is how I use my decloaked 31mm).  I might decloak my 23mm Axiom LX one day to see if it's more comfortable to use that way.  The large flat surface does not fit close to my eye, so sometimes local ambient light reflections off the eye lens can reduce image contrast.  Maybe it will fit my face a little better when decloaked.

 

 

Gary

 

 

 

 

[Rick-T137]

I want to put a word in for the often overlooked TV Plossls. Shortly after being introduced in 1980, they became an industry standard for quality and performance. They became so common they have became for granted in the pursuit of a wider and wider yet field of view.  Sure eye relief gets tight when we get down to the short focal lengths, but you can count on getting a sharp, contrasty workhorse of an eyepiece without breaking the bank.  
 

Among the Naglers, Panoptics, and Radians, is still a trusted set of smoothie plossls.  I can use these on any scope on any night and be very happy.

By the time I decided to move up to TV Plössls the smoothies were gone and replaced by the rubber knurled/eyecup jobs we have now. Still, I find my TV's to be very sharp and constrasty and these are essentially my eyepieces that I use all the time. I'm not yet at the stage where I want to spend big bucks on each eyepiece or have heavy, bulbous eyepieces in my focuser. For me, right now (since 2016 actually) these are a perfect fit! Cheers!

 

Edited by Rick-T137, 03 March 2025 - 02:55 PM.

[payner]

 

ased on what I have read in this forum over the years, I have two candidates for this thread; both of which still reside in the stable:

 

The first is the 15mm Tele Vue Panoptic.  Some in this forum have looked down on its 10mm eye relief; but this figure is no different than that offered by a 15mm Plossl or a Vixen HR.  The Panoptic's performance is excellent, and I particularly like the way it renders color.

 

Not that it is needed, but I agree. The 15 mm Panoptic is excellent and I especially value it for its small form.

 

Attached Thumbnails

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[Astro-Master]

1. The Baader 2" 31mm 72*  Aspheric seems to give the brightest images in my scopes.  I'm thinking it's because it only has 6 elements, a high polish and superior coatings.  There is a fare amount of astigmatism at the edge at F6 and faster, but with a good barlow the edge looks good to my eye at F 4.5.

 

Last week using my 18" Dob under 21.1 skies with the Baader 31 and my Astro-Physics Barlow at 1.8x with a power of 121x I compared it to my 17 Ethos at 122x on a faint open cluster, the Baader 31 was showing the threshold stars better. 

 

2. The old University Optics Wide Scan 2" 32mm 80* A FOV eyepiece came on the market right after the 31 Nagler, but cost only $200.  It has a huge eye lens and a comfortable eye relief, and good edge correction.

Edited by Astro-Master, 03 March 2025 - 04:39 PM.

[turtle86]

Televue 11T6 Naglers. 

 

I don't know why people didn't buy these, but they are just as indispensable in my binoviewer as the 24mm Pans.

 

Ron

 

Agree. Almost as good as the Apollo 11 and a whole lot cheaper!   
 

Mine gets a lot of use.

[Astro-Master]

I wouldn't call the TV 3-6 Zoom underated, It's simply the best high power eyepiece I've ever used on the Moon, Planets, and Double Stars, and is truly parfocal through the whole range of power making it a pleasure to use.  

[25585]

I don't know how it's rated, but one eyepiece that's usually overlooked is the 23mm Axiom LX.  Although it looks a lot like a Luminous, it's better than the Luminous optically. The LX is pretty easy to find on the used market with a Wanted ad at a reasonable cost. 

 

The 23mm Axiom LX presents very nice images similar to the 23mm Pentax XW and 22mm Nagler T4.  It's spec'd at 82^o apparent field, 17mm eye relief, and a 34mm field stop diameter.  Because it appears to have a slightly larger true field than the 85^o 23mm XW, I wonder if the Axiom LX focal length is closer to 24mm vs. its advertised 23mm.  

 

The image in the LX is very nice with minimal astigmatism showing even in my 100mm f/4 Petzval refractor.  It has slight field curvature, which will likely go unnoticed by most users.  I find that star colors in the LX are a bit more subdued compared to the XW and Nagler, but I don't think it's from loss of light throughput because I've never consistently seen threshold stars in the XW or Nagler that were invisible in the LX.  

 

I observe without glasses, and it's easy to see the entire field of view even with the wide flat top of the eyepiece cup.  The cup raises up with a twist and is pretty large in diameter - it's raised up a little in the picture below.  If one does not like the large eye cup, it can be easily removed.  I have not removed the eye cup on mine but if it's similar to the 31mm Axiom LX, then there's a groove on the top that will accept a rubber eye guard (which is how I use my decloaked 31mm).  I might decloak my 23mm Axiom LX one day to see if it's more comfortable to use that way.  The large flat surface does not fit close to my eye, so sometimes local ambient light reflections off the eye lens can reduce image contrast.  Maybe it will fit my face a little better when decloaked.

 

22-23mm.jpg

 

Gary

23mm Axiom LX has less than 17mm eye relief, even with the cup down. I have one.

[Headshot]

8.5mm Pentax XF.

[GGK]

23mm Axiom LX has less than 17mm eye relief, even with the cup down. I have one.

Good to know.  I observe without glasses and it’s easy for me to use and see the full field. I raise the eyecup some for best positioning. Comparing to other eyepieces for information - the 23mm Axiom’s eye relief is longer than the 28mm AT UWA (it also has a wide top and I cannot see the full field in that one), but I don’t think it’s eye relief is as long as the 24mm or 30mm UFF.
 

Gary

[GGK]

8.5mm Pentax XF.

I have a pair that I like in my binoviewer. Perfect size. 
 

Gary

[Procyon]

This guy right here is my most underrated because of cost and crisp sharp views at 2mm exit pupil in an SCT. Bought it for 150 I think. Maybe less.

 

20mm TS Optics 100 XWA

 

Edited by Procyon, 03 March 2025 - 09:49 PM.

[AstroBoyInTheCity]

Meade QX Super Wide 20mm - This one found it's way into my collection when I purchased a box of fifteen random eyepieces on Marketplace. I picked them up for the TeleVue smoothies that were in the box, but this one has ended up seeing more scope time than any of the rest. 70 deg afov and quite sharp across in my f/4.7 DOB. Comfortably light form factor. Excellent Contrast. Good eye relief.  I've read some mixed reviews on the QX line, but to my eyes and through my scopes, this one seems to perform well above expectations.

 

Thanks for the fun thread!