> Click here to jump to the Best Eyepieces section. Telescopes Cost: Acceptable, Good, and Really Good Telescopes, Used Telescopes Buying Guide The Complete Guide, Different Types of Asteroids (C, S, and M) The Definitive Guide, Top 10 Night Sky Objects for Astronomy Beginners, Asteroid Mining Know Everything About It, German Equatorial Mounts (GEMs) Overview and Working. How Good Are Super Plossl Eyepieces for Astronomy? The 21mm is simply amazing, I can't believe that TV decided to discontinue this little gem, it is better than the newer version in every category including eye comfort, the overall shape along with fit and finish is one of the best from TV. I once had to use a 6mm Plossl to attempt to perform a star-test collimation for a telescope at the observatory. Again, does it create a more immersive viewing experience? (Focal ratio is a term that refers to the telescopes focal length divided by its aperture. Skywatcher SP Plossl lenses - Discussions - Stargazers Lounge For the $66/$42 of these kits, you can get one or two decent eyepieces (depending on where you buy). Orion Sirius Plossl eyepieces are ideal for any type of telescope; refractor, reflector, or catadioptic. If you upgrade the telescope or add a second one, the eyepieces will work on that telescope too. Is there much of a difference between the celestron and haader? Lower power almost always looks better than higher power. This will become more apparent the wider the AFOV is of the eyepiece, in my experience. Eyepieces are a religion. The TFOV of the Hyperion will be greater than the TFOV of the Plssl, but the magnification will be about the same. With a 130mm-F5 I would use a Plossl 32mm for its low-mag-wide-view. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Meade telescope maksutov eyepiece ETX-105EC Super Plossl 6.4mm 1.25" w capsule at the best online prices at eBay! Ive read, and re-read, and re-re-read this page. Inexpensive Plossls that are manufactured using low-quality lenses are susceptible to internal reflections when viewing bright objects at high magnification. Low focal ratio scopes deliver the light rays to the eyepiece at an ever-increasing angle as the focal ratio number goes down. The TFOV will be as wide as your 40mm Plssl, but with greater magnification and a slightly darker sky background. However, Orion has managed to make one that is quite compatible with most styles of telescope. It will also make your life easier if youre out observing on windy days that would otherwise blow off the front cover of your telescope. Its quite long but that is what we are aiming for and hopefully, it was useful to you. 8.5-ish mm (75x & 150x) Now you can get good eyepieces for under or around $50. In the 1990s Meade instruments came up with a new design for the Meade 4000 line similar to Plossl that added a fifth glass element on top of the two pairs (4 total). Do you think it would be sensible for me to look at getting a higher magnification specific eyepiece? Le migliori offerte per Celestron 1,25 pollici Omni Plossl telescopio astronomico britannico 32 mm J8R6 sono su eBay Confronta prezzi e caratteristiche di prodotti nuovi e usati Molti articoli con consegna gratis! It is all about your budget, your goals, and your objectives, as outlined in the article. Omni 40mm Eyepiece - 1.25" Learn More. The Plossl eyepiece has 4 lenses, consisting of 2 identical double lenses. I also struggled to see features on both (gas bands on Jupiter and clear rings on saturn). I usually recommend a 32 mm Plossl type eyepiece as that provides about the widest view you can achieve with a 1.25 focuser. Tele Vue offers several series with apparent fields of view from 50 degrees to 120 degrees. I couldnt find any suggestions on your site about diagonal recommendations. Ive read reviews about my scope. What Does It Do. With a refractor, SCT or MCT, it is usually better to get a correct image diagonal than a correcting eyepiece. My understanding of eyepieces was very limited until I read this article, you explain things in a clear and understandable way which made my understanding so much clearer. The design uses a planoconvex, two cemented-element eye lens and a large convex field lens. Type above and press Enter to search. Any 1.25 diagonal should work. Higher priced eyepieces usually include more elements in the optical path that are there to help reduce or eliminate aberrations that can be seen around the edges of lower cost eyepieces. If you are on a strict budget, this is a good choice as a zoom eyepiece. It costs a lot to get that last 10% of performance. Any 1.25 eyepiece will work with the BH Zoom 2 adapter. Etc.? If I had to give them all up and keep only one eyepiece, It would be the BH Zoom. Thanks. So yeah, they are good.. and some are even better than others, and more collectible. In comparison, Aspherical lenses generally have no color distortion but might not work out well if the telescope user needs really high magnification. In the case of the Celestron, you get all the focal lengths from 24 to 8mm in one eyepiece that costs $100. They also improve a bit when it comes to eye relief. Hayppy that now I have more facts to put in my decision. You can buy eyepieces specifically focused on a particular scope or you can buy eyepieces that you expect to use with this and all future scopes. Such eyepieces are able to offer great performance, i.e., satisfactory degrees of deviations, to about a 50.degree field. Now we have a maximum established. These have the advantage that the front section with the optics can be unthreaded and threaded on to the filter threads of a 1.25 inch eyepiece. The price can run to over $1000 per eyepiece. If you do upgrade, youll probably want to go for a different eyepiece design than a Plosslsomething with a sharper image or a wider field of view or a longer eye relief (or all three.). The Big Bang Optics participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for websites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Newer multi-coatings are better, I suppose, but newer does not always mean better in the ocular game. I am a BIG fan of zoom eyepieces, especially if you dont have many. A Plossl eyepiece has a field of view thats very wide, so if youre looking at the full moon or some other object in space with it, chances are youll see the entire thing. Features : 5 superior-grade Plossl eyepieces: 1.25-in, 4-element design with a 52 AFOV (32mm has 44)4mm, 6mm, 9mm, 15mm, and 32mm . I dont have a specific diagonal to recommend and I am not aware of any specific issues with the one that is included with the scope. I possess an embarrassing array of fine eyepieces with names like Ethos and Nagler and Delos. The Japan made 16mm Meade 3000 was a very nice medium power plossl and the 40mm in that series was surprisingly nice as well. One of the main drawbacks of this eyepiece, though, is the eye relief. Tele Vue has eyepieces that approach $1000. My 20, 26, and 32mm Plossls will probably stay around. In High School, they told me that F=MA In college I learned that F=dp/dt But F=MA works well enough for most situations and that is how I think of it. Celestron 2026 Erecting Prism Barlow Lens Set is well suited as an astronomical viewing lens kit or for enjoying terrestrial sights like nature walks, sporting events, and more! New and used eyepieces + 2 diagonals - Updated Sooooo helpful! Thanks all. A zoom eyepiece works like the zoom lens on a camera. As of the past couple years, it seems possible that the choice between Kellners and Plossls has been made for usyou either get what you get with your beginner telescope, or you will have to find a Plossl. The biggest advantage is much better ER in a large ocular. A Kellner eyepiece has 1 double lens and 1 single lens. However, if you want to optimize your viewing experience, youll need to invest in a better-quality eyepiece. And new proprietary designs come out from time to time. Even though there are more sophisticated types of EPs, Plossls hit the right spot between high-quality optics and price. Get to know more about us here. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Non-eyeglass wearers can usually tolerate Plossls as short as about 10-12mm before their eyelashes start brushing the ocular lens. From planetary viewing to deep sky watching. Orion SkyQuest XT8 Intelliscope Review See if you will observe with or without your glasses. A wide range of focal lengths are available, all in 1.25-inch size. Free shipping for many products! If you stumble the first few uses, dont be discouraged. eyepiece shows signs of use with caps and bolt case, 32 mm Plossl very good cond. A typical zoom eyepiece has a focal length range of 8 mm to 24 mm. Worth it is a tough question to answer. How you divide up your magnification range is up to you. I started with the Celestron zoom. As Im sure you know, a Barlow actually narrows the cone of light that enters the eyepiece, hence it affects the apparent focal length and thus the f/ratio of the telescope objective. If you just want a quick answer, skip to the conclusion at the end of the article. These "other" ones I speak of, aren't technically that, they are a 5 element eyepiece, of a different design. Below 20 however, the eye relief makes it difficult for me and my glasses so Ive been replacing my 5-15 EPs with 82 degree EPs with more relief. We will use 10 mm as the eyepiece focal length, but we will look at three different 10 mm eyepieces, each with a different apparent field of view, AFOV. Gosky Plossl 40 mm Telescope Eyepiece - 1.25inch This is probably the worst eyepiece I can recommend. In 1849, Carl Kellner invented the Kellner eyepiece, which is essentially a Ramsden eyepiece where one lens has been replaced with an achromatic doublet made of two different types of glass. . Plossl eyepieces have an eye relief equal to about 80% of their focal length. The Celestron Omni Plossl eyepiece range offers a nice entry-level range into the higher quality 4-element Plossl design. Read the full Earning Disclosure here. Lets just say that once you get below F5, it is really hard for the eyepiece to deliver a clean image to the edge. A couple of them felt fancier, but the jump in performance was either insignificant or non-existent. So its best for use during duller times when there isnt much brightness visible. Plossl telescope eyepieces are the most popular type of eyepiece on the market. . short answer: yes. In my opinion, you do not. By having a range of magnifications, you can optimize the image, which means you need more eyepieces. The components of a Plossl eyepiece are the two groups of lenses. I have Celestron and the Baader Hyperion. There was an old Meade Super-Plossl design that used an additional lens element and could reach a wider field of view. The BH zoom is optically a 1.25 eyepiece. Perhaps another review would be helpful. Though not the Meade. Remember that visual and AP have very different requirements, so plan on at least two different optical tubes. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Orion+Q70&ref=nb_sb_noss_2, Understanding Telescope Eyepieces- There are recommendations, based on budget, Magnification or power = focal length telescope / focal length eyepiece, Focal ratio = focal length telescope / aperture telescope, maximum practical aperture = aperture X 2, Edges of the optics are blackened for increased contrast, which prevents internal reflections, Anti-reflection, fully multi-coated optics provide enhanced light transmission for bright and clear images. Other eyepieces of more advanced design can have better eye relief and field of view. Do you need to have the best to enjoy astronomy? When discussing eyepieces, you will hear people comment on how well the eyepiece is corrected. Imagine you are looking at the moon with each of these eyepieces and consider what you would see. How does that field of view impact the viewing experience? My friend has one and he really likes it, and it is his third telescope. An Austrian inventor Georg Simon Plossl came up with the Plossl eyepiece design in 1860. I also have an older smoothtop 20mm Meade 4000 that is also 5 element, and it is a fine eyepiece too, compared to another 20mm of the same vintage. Focal length telescope / focal length eyepiece = magnification or power. Focus on the magnifications rather than the mm of the eyepieces. In the next section, we will talk about the AFOV of an eyepiece. We may earn commissions by recommending products on this website. I have just one Meade product currently and that is a series 4000 1.25 inch UHC type filter which I use for outreach. I loved my Baader Mark-IV 8mm-24mm Zoom+Barlow combo in my 8" EdgeHD. I often recommend a 32 mm Plossl as a good low power wide view eyepiece for scopes with a 1.25 focuser. Goldline Eyepieces - The Definitive Guide - Telescopic Watch Of course, for the cost of the two Plossls, you could justify having them as spares or outreach EPs. The 66-degree AFOV of the Gold Line series provides a 32% wider field than Plossl eyepieces. but the meat of the article is about understanding the considerations and specifications to know when selecting eyepieces. Plossl eyepieces have an eye relief equal to about 80% of their focal length. While many people will stay with and add Plossls to their eyepiece set, I would recommend not going below 10 mm focal length as the eye relief gets quite short. The focal length range for 1.25 Plossls is about 6mm to 45mm. Note that many cheap eyepieces promise a wide AFOV but deliver a view with a lot of distortion or aberration as you move away from the center of the field of view. Aspheric eyepiece is a variation of Plossl design, it has an anti-reflection coating on the front glass surface to ensure maximum light transmission and will also provide your instrument with better quality images if you need higher magnification levels. The view being presented to your eye in a low power eyepiece minimizes everything from optical aberrations in the telescope, to distortions from thermals or atmospheric conditions. And the zoom provides every magnification in that range without having to change eyepieces. Apparent Field of View: This is a measure of how wide a view the eyepiece will provide as compared to alternate eyepieces. While I also have the Baader Hyperion Zoom, mentioned later, I continue to make use of the Celestron, especially in my smaller scopes. Scott. Look those up, seeing and transparency in the context of astronomy. If you are just testing the waters or on a tight budget, get the Celestron, which is still pretty good. This makes them a bit more complex and expensive than other designs, but also gives them a wider field of view, reasonable eye relief, and reduces optic aberrations. Many compare these favorably to eyepieces that are much higher priced. The downside to this type of lens is that they can cause chromatic aberration which creates colored spots around bright objects such as planets or stars due to the different wavelengths not going through equally. One more thing if you havent purchased a telescope yet, I would recommend a tabletop version, since they are easier for kids to move than the fiddley ones with spindly legs and complicated dials. Sorry but I am not offering a configuration and pricing service. It allows each eyepiece to provide two magnifications. Plossl eyepiece is one of the reasonable options when it comes to telescope eyepieces for stargazing or astronomy. Nothing will stop you from trying to go higher, but in all likelihood, the image will be poor and not worth the cost of eyepieces to achieve it. What happens if you use an eyepiece that has a the wrong exit pupil? However, I have eyepieces with much smaller exit pupils and they work fine. It also gives the widest possible exit pupil in my dob and SCT, very handy when using nebula filters. Some optics brands have taken the next step and launched some eyepieces they have labeled as Super Plossl. I have four telescopes, but I use the same eyepieces in all of them. When a beginner is choosing eyepieces on a budget, there are a number of possible designs they may choose between. With the XT8i I usually used the zoom configured with a 1.5X Barlow giving me a 75X to 225X which I found to be nearly perfect for that scope. Do I need an adapter if my scope has a Plossl lens? When selecting the best eyepiece for you, consider: Eyepieces are standardized so whatever investment you make today, the eyepieces will continue to serve you in any future scopes you may own. The first group is made up of a convex lens and concave lens, while the second one has four small cylindrical lenses that work together to magnify what you see through them for your viewing pleasure. I would expect it to be similar to the Celestron in image quality. Later in the article, I will also give my top recommendations for both the best Kellner as well as the best Plossl eyepieces. Because of this setup, you might also hear a Plossl eyepiece referred to as a symmetrical eyepiece. Stargazing Help is a participant in Amazon Associates program. Prices can run from $20 to $200 so the field is pretty broad. They are also good for those who have astigmatism because they are designed to be more forgiving with eye placement. Plossl eyepieces are great. For what it is worth, a slow scope like your CPC9.25 (f/10?) Pentax 10.5mm Eye Piece Excellent Condition (#314374986239) r***d (1910 . What follows are specific eyepieces that I have tried, own, or have read so many good reports about that I feel very comfortable recommending them. 30 = 60 = 1.3 Thus the 30 mm eyepiece in a 600 mm telescope produces 600/30 = 20X magnification while with the Barlow, we have 1800/30 = 60X. For visual use, 1.5X, 2X, 2.5X, and 3X Barlow lenses are common. no caps come in bolt case. None of my fancy EPs have enough contrast for this application. This has nothing to do with your scope or eyepiece. They deliver sharp images in almost all telescopes. Meade 4000 Super Plossl - any good? - Discussions - Eyepieces Lets illustrate with an example using a 1200 mm FL telescope. This is a fairly inexpensive zoom that I wanted to try. Even when I upgraded to a 6mm Goldline, I kept the Kellner around because of pretty annoying kidney-bean blackout issues on the Moon with that eyepiece. Plossl vs Kellner Eyepieces: The Ultimate Comparison Free shipping for many products! Your email address will not be published. And since this article is intended as an aid to beginners rather than a rigorous optics lesson, I think the context I provided works well enough. If you wish to find a short-focal length eyepiece with a longer, more comfortable eye relief, you could use a long-focus eyepiece with a separate, high-quality barlow lens (an achromatic or apochromatic fully multi-coated barlow would be necessary), or you could purchase one of the several designs incorporating a smyth/barlow lens into the eyepiece design. Then you can judge for yourself if it is worth it. Learn more about our story and the team behind the scene. Thanks in advance I really appreciate it! Of course, the entire eyepiece must be manufactured and finished correctly to realize the design's full potential. Best suited for telescopes with f-ratios f6 or slower. They are a good brand with high-quality eyepieces, you just dont need to spend the extra money for almost no gain in performance. No price limit? Generally, to maximize the number of stars you see in an eyepiece with a given telescope, both the magnification and field of view should be maximized. Oh the pain of uh having access to really cool eyepieces.). Consider something between 35 and 40 mm in focal length with an AFOV of 65 degrees or wider for your lowest power eyepiece for your telescope. The ocular for your highest visual acuity - for viewing deep-sky objects and the like - should have an exit pupil around . Any exit pupil between 7 mm and .5 mm is just fine. But for AP you should really start your planning with the mount. The combination of high-quality optics and accessible prices have made them the favorite design for amateur astronomers and even professionals. I tested out my BH zoom yesterday for the first time and it is a great eyepiece so thank you for the recommendation! These are exceptional eyepieces, and only available on the used market nowadays. In the beginning, you are not going to know what the atmospheric conditions might be in your area. I had a bino pair of TV 20mm Plossls, very fine for high power planetary observation with my long focus 8" Mak, then I also bought the older TV 21mm Plossl, after trying the 21mm I sold the more recent 20mm.