Is the ES 24mm 68 deg better than bst 25mm in f5 scope?

[djhartist]

Once you realise that as with most things in life you will have to compromise on something even if you have an endless pot of money, there will be much less pain in the decision making process

True, in a way i'm happy at the moment with the small kit i have and can work, learn and enjoy with it. Am just looking at ways it can possibly be tweaked, to improve and evolve over time, as it's a fascinating thing to be involved with. Unfortunately i'm far from having an endless pot of money, much the opposite, its pretty empty at the moment, so I want to try to make practical and beneficial decisions regarding future equipment that can potentially sustain visual observing for a decent amount of time. This thread has been helpful for that, thanks.

[Moonshane]

Sounds like you'll fit right in. We are all pretty much in your kind of boat :0)

[spaceboy]

I purchased a brand new ES 24mm Ar purged eyepiece from ES Europe several months back and I have to say it was one of the worst eyepieces I have ever come across !!. So bad that I contacted ES to query if I may have got a dud as I have other ES eyepieces and can't fault them although I did have a similar experience with an ES 30mm 82°. They took almost a month to reply to me despite several emails trying to contact them and when they did reply they weren't very helpful. In the end they suggested I return the eyepiece at my expense to investigate the matter but not after giving me the impression that they didn't care at my disappointment almost implying that the views were to be expected from the 68° series. As I had already parted with £137 and would be looking to put yet another £15 in to returning the eyepiece with the possibility that these were the views to be expected I decided to take it on the chin and cut my losses selling it at discount on ebay.

The views were soft at best even struggling to get sharpness across the entire 10% centre of the view. The outer edge showed a noticeable amount of distortion with some astigmatism mixed in. For £130 your money would be far better invested in a used eyepiece of better quality. As others have mentioned the 24mm Pan is highly regarded and I have seen these sell for £130-£150 used so it's not beyond your budget.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

nothing wrong with Maxvision branded 24mm 68 degree either.Tested them personally in single and also in binoviewers for a few sessions.Maxvisions are the same 5000 series Meade and have the same optics as ES 24mm (well same configuration of lenses).Only issue i had in bino mode was that the twist up outer housing was too big and i had to de-cloak them.ES version is much smaller for that purpose.However, for 66 quid brand new its not a brainer.You get a good quality EP for very little money. Panoptics is considered the top one,but i would say that Meade 5000,Maxvision or ES are not really that far off.We are talking 5% poorer performance.

[Paul73]

I believe that ES did have a few quality problems a while back. I have a 30mm 82° which is a cracking eyepiece provided that you can lift the thing! It is optically splendid and stands up pretty well compared to Naglers, but the end cap won't stay on and the threading for filters is a bit iffy! True you would be very unlikely to see this from Televue. But at aprox half the cost....

I bought a new ES 82° 24mm ahead of a second hand Nagler T4 22mm (£50 to £100 more) and have not regretted it.

Paul

[YKSE]

...the end cap won't stay on and the threading for filters is a bit iffy! True you would be very unlikely to see this from Televue.

 I think you can read some complains about the issues with some TV eyepieces too on the other side of pond.

[Ruud]

CN has a review on a whole lot of 24 to 26 mm eyepieces, including Explore Scientific 68º, TeleVue Panoptic and  Maxvision 68º (the latter in the form of an undressed Meade 5000 SWA).

It's a good read. The ES 68º, Panoptic and MV 68º score very similarly.

[John]

CN has a review on a whole lot of 24 to 26 mm eyepieces, including Explore Scientific 68º, TeleVue Panoptic and  Maxvision 68º (the latter in the form of an undressed Meade 5000 SWA).

It's a good read. The ES 68º, Panoptic and MV 68º score very similarly.

Thats a great and really thorough review

I wish I could produce reviews of that depth

It takes a lot of planning and time to produce a report like that. It's worth reading the methodolgy used to see whats involved.

Incidently, the author, BillP, is a member here but posts mainly on the "Cloudnights" forum.

[djhartist]

Very useful info, thanks. So it seems that generally quality is good and worth considering. And I get the impression that the view would be better across the majority of the fov in the f5.

I was a little concerned that the mirror could be the problem. As this is the only reflector I've ever looked through I havent been able to compare to others so have had to presume that the mirror is optically ok (it was 'new'). Hopefully the issue is a combination of eyepiece and mirror / focal ratio interaction, and that this would be resolved by upgrading the eyepiece.

In future,I'd probably like to get a 6 or 8 inch once I have space / location for it. So it's interesting to consider suitable eyepieces that would work now and in future, and to learn about the nature of reflectors.

Sent from my HTC Desire 500 using Tapatalk

[AstroAdam]

I have a MV 24mm and it's absolutely fantastic for the money (as is the whole range). They regularly come up on ABS, but do go quite quickly!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[djhartist]

So basically I'm going to stand up for the BST 25mm now!

I don't want to give a negative impression about it from original post. It's a good eyepiece, definitely a clear improvement in performance over some plossls i had. It allowed me to see and experience things and to feel moved last night. I'm still learning about the quirks and behaviour of reflectors and equipment, so some of my queries and doubts are due to inexperience. Maybe an upgrade in the future to an ES, Panoptic or other will make things even better, but i don't think it's a matter of urgency for now.

I had a really wonderful observing session last night using the bst 25mm and 5 inch and looked at the views a bit more critically.

I walked to a fairly dark bit of land just outside town about 11.30ish where i could get an almost 360 degree view. The night was really clear and still. Once set up it took about half hour for things to cool down properly. The milky way was a bright splash overhead. Once cool, I used the BST as a finder eyepiece for browsing and for looking at bigger dso. It showed some astigmatism about 20% around the edges, perhaps there was some field curvature from the mirror (?) (though the BST's seem to have quite a flat field). As astigmatism covers coma... i've still so much to learn about aberrations!

But as a finder and if i sometimes juggled the focus to that compromise position between on- and off-axis depending on its use, it was good. Also used for detailed looks.

Andromeda was the best i've ever seen it, quite radiant, M110 looked so little next to it. I suppose because of the diffuse nature of M31 the off-axis softness didn't matter. On the Double Cluster it was more apparent and tricky to try to get it all sharp at the same time, but still a wonderful sight. Though even the 12mm BST was similar off-axis here, so i suspect that this is more of  a focal ratio / mirror thing.

I wanted to try to find Stephen's Quintet, don't think i was successful (though maybe i can't reach that level of magnitude anyway), though galaxy C30 (NGC 7331) was clear. Also found M71 globular near Altair. All new pieces in the enigmatic jigsaw puzzle of the sky. Looked at Saturn and Pinwheel, Sunflower, M81 + M82, and browsed the dense milky way, stopping off at clusters. The moon began rising and i had a look. In the 25mm it lost clarity about 30% from the edge, but was lovely, yellow and sharp all over in the centre of the eyepiece. I tried higher mags but things were starting to fog and dew up.

Around 2ish, the analytical part of the brain shut down, and i was just left in a zen-like poetic state, sort of in awe and part of the beautiful night sky and the quiet earth. This continued on the 3am walk home, the low moonlight, some light clouds, the stars apparently steady in their imperceptable motion. The roads traffic free, quiet houses. Gradually more streelights, making the stars recede, taking their as yet unknown names with them. One last cigarette on a bench on a hill, looking back towards the dark fields. The prussian blue tint of predawn in the north, one last blaze of the milky way above me, satellites still blipping about on predetermined trajectories. And back home, my street a dayglow orange blaze of lights, making the stars all but invisible.

I think it's great to be able to have access to affordable equipment to pursue this interest, it may not always seem optically perfect, but sometimes that just doesn't matter

[horseheadnebula]

I purchased a brand new ES 24mm Ar purged eyepiece from ES Europe several months back and I have to say it was one of the worst eyepieces I have ever come across !!. So bad that I contacted ES to query if I may have got a dud as I have other ES eyepieces and can't fault them although I did have a similar experience with an ES 30mm 82°. They took almost a month to reply to me despite several emails trying to contact them and when they did reply they weren't very helpful. In the end they suggested I return the eyepiece at my expense to investigate the matter but not after giving me the impression that they didn't care at my disappointment almost implying that the views were to be expected from the 68° series. As I had already parted with £137 and would be looking to put yet another £15 in to returning the eyepiece with the possibility that these were the views to be expected I decided to take it on the chin and cut my losses selling it at discount on ebay.

The views were soft at best even struggling to get sharpness across the entire 10% centre of the view. The outer edge showed a noticeable amount of distortion with some astigmatism mixed in. For £130 your money would be far better invested in a used eyepiece of better quality. As others have mentioned the 24mm Pan is highly regarded and I have seen these sell for £130-£150 used so it's not beyond your budget.

Does others have similar experience or is this individual case? Is this anything to do with ES Europe has nice discount for it? Price start to be tempting and I have considered to buy it. At least CN link that Ruud posted author reviewed ES 68 similar or even better than Panoptic.

[kurtz9]

Does others have similar experience or is this individual case? Is this anything to do with ES Europe has nice discount for it? Price start to be tempting and I have considered to buy it. At least CN link that Ruud posted author reviewed ES 68 similar or even better than Panoptic.

I tend to think it might be specific to ES-europe;  I've only had one dealing with ES customer service (I'm in the US- and was just asking an informational question) and they responded within 24 hours with a clear, polite and detailed, response.

[YKSE]

I would like to think that the quality of that EP spaceboy got is an exception, but I do think that ES europe's customer service has a lot to be desired, the very slow mail response can definitely be improved.

[spaceboy]

Does others have similar experience or is this individual case? Is this anything to do with ES Europe has nice discount for it? Price start to be tempting and I have considered to buy it. At least CN link that Ruud posted author reviewed ES 68 similar or even better than Panoptic.

There is always the remote possibility I landed myself a lemon. ES Europe seemed completely unsympathetic of the poor views I was experiencing and given I would be looking at shipping fees of at least £15 to have the eyepiece checked with the possibility the views being as they should to then receive the same eyepiece back but being further out of pocket I decided to cut my losses and sell it at an eye watering discount. Had I got more positive a feedback from ES Europe then I would have probably cashed in my "lifetime warranty" and returned the eyepiece but they sure weren't committing to any kind of agreement to replace the eyepiece only to look at it.

Given the rather enticing discount they are now offering on the 24mm 68° and so soon after experiencing my problems it could be they have a duff batch they are trying to offload ?? You never know maybe I wasn't the only person they had complaining and had similar thoughts to me deciding to just cut their losses ??

[John]

If you are resident in the USA the service levels and warranty from ES seem to be excellent. In Europe though, where most of the members of this forum are, this unfortunately does not seem to be the case. The US type lifetime warranty does not apply outside the US either.

At least we have a good ES vendor in the UK now and decent pricing in First Light Optics

[spaceboy]

Sadly FLO started selling ES ep's after I had purchased mine from ES Europe otherwise I would have purchased one from them. What I like with FLO is you can buy with confidence as the customer support is superb which unfortunately the same could not be said of ES Europe

[spaceboy]

Hi

Just a quick query if anyone has had the chance to compare these two eyepieces?

My BST 25mm tends to lose clarity in about 30-40% off-axis edge of view in my 130p f5 Explorer. On axis it's nice and sharp. This may be coma or field curvature or something, not sure. It's usable but a bit annoying. Collimation using a cheshire seems ok, as i can get good sharp views with 9mm ortho + 2.5 ed barlow, but that's the other end of the spectrum so not so relevant!

My question is, would the ES 24mm 68 deg eyepiece perform better and be sharper across the view, therefore benefiting from a wider fov than a plossl?

( Don't want to upgrade to more expensive eyepiece if there isn't going to be much improvement. Maybe it's just the nature of the mirror, and something to live with without a coma corrector, which i don't want to get at mo. Have been reading about other options such as Vixen LVW, Panoptic etc. Also the Vixen SLV's sound interesting but have less fov again! Looking to get a small collection that work in both f5 and f13 and can be future proof for a larger scope down the line.)

I admit I did have some concerns regarding the QC of the ES 24mm as even in my f/8 evostar it was difficult to get all the stars in the centre perfectly sharp. So that my next comments are not totally wrote off has being a one off poor user experience, I first wanted to point out that I had tried everything from rotating the eyepiece and nudging the scope to trying it in various focal length and types of scope, but it never at any time gave me any reason to think there was any major fault with the optics themselves. I can only assume that maybe the coatings were substandard or the ep wasn't properly purged and some ??condensation mist?? is trapped in there or some other odd phenomenon. I had even considered that for some reason the ES24mm took longer than my other ep's to reach ambient temperature so always gave it a try before heading in after a session in the cold. Again a visual inspection of the eyepiece In all different lights revealed nothing untoward. The replies from ES Europe were the final deciding factor making me think that my expectations of the eyepiece were unrealistic.

As you will know from my other posts my disappointment in the ep meant I let the ES 24mm go but looking for an alternative 1.25" max FOV ep left me with few choices. 24mm pan would have been my preferred replacement but I lost so much on the sale of the ES that was out of the question. I could have given a 25mm BST another try which would have given me roughly the same magnification as a 24mm but fell short on the FOV so again was out of the running. This left me with the maxvision which I decided to take a gamble on one that recently came up used.

After last nights crystal clear skies were to good to miss I gave the maxvision a quick first light in my ST120. Now for the money these things can be bought new I'm absolutely amazed at the quality of the views even in a budget f/5 achromatic refractor. OK I do not know for sure the ES 24mm wasn't a bad one that slipped through QC and for that reason I have contacted the buyer for their feedback now they have had chance to try it. What I do know is personally out of the two even if the views were equal I would choose the maxvision again for comfort of use if nothing else. I have always been a big fan of twist up eyecups on eyepieces for getting eye position just right with out having to hover but add to that for me at least the maxvision eye cup was a near perfect fit to my eye. Oddly I found this does a better job of stopping any stray light than the fold up cup did on the ES although I will note I had to have it folded down to get better position half the time anyway. I think this is a common problem with most of the ES purged eyepieces due to the unusually deep recess for the eye lens no doubt due to the need to seal the lens with O rings to prevent leaking of the inert gasses??

At f/5 the MV did show some signs of coma around the edges but this was not intrusive by any means. I did pick up on some signs of stronger aberrations at the very edge of the FOV which I am assuming to be similar to the distortion experienced in the ES 24mm only far better controlled in the MV. I will check this again though when the moon is about.

In answer to your question Dj' "Is the ES 24mm 68 deg better than bst 25mm in f5 scope?" In my opinion if the views of a good example are similar to that of the MV then I would say yes the ES 24mm is better than a BST in an f/5 scope. I owned a full set of BST explorers some time back and in an f/5 scope the 25mm was the runt of the litter. Just as good as the others in a slower scope but then that is often the case for most eyepieces. There is then also the possibility that I did receive a perfectly fine ES24mm and that the views were to be expected. In that case my question would then be " Is the ES 24mm 68 deg better than the 24mm Maxvision ?" As much as I like all of my other ES purged eyepieces I would say no. For the money the 24mm Maxvision is a far better eyepiece and at used prices is unbeatable value given there are few alternatives.

Considering the cost of the ES 24mm I have to wonder why if it was a poor example it ever made it through QC ? Could I have really been that unlucky to end up with that 1 in a 1000 ep ?!? The MV is half the cost yet I can pick up a used example that far exceeded my expectations. I would still have to question where the value in the purged ES is had the views been as good? Sure you don't really have to worry about dust getting in between the optics or the off chance you dropped it in a pond, but still. I can only assume that the MV have indeed the Meade SWA optics that once demanded it's original hefty price tag ?? and not that of the ES 24mm draped in the surplus uniforms of a failed Meade order ??

[spaceboy]

I thought I'd better give an update on my last post after receiving a reply from the purchaser of my ES 24mm 68°.......

Thank you for your honesty Nick but I am happy with the eyepiece thank you and have not experienced any difficulties reaching a sharp focus.

I have seen a small amount of stretching on planets when near to the outmost edge. As I keep planets in the middle of view when observing this is not a problem and have not noticed it at any other time.

Thank you for offering to return the eyepiece to the manufacturer but I do not see any need in doing so at this time.

Stuart.

I am not sure what scope he is using the eyepiece in but he seems happy with it so I can only assume I was being an overly fussy git  On reflection I guess maybe I was just expecting more from an eyepiece that costs £130+ new.

As said before though having now owned an ES24, maxvision and in the past a 25mm BST, my advice would still be go with the maxvision. Other than the ES being purged I can't say it brought anything else to the table and for a similar price to the BST your getting 8° more FOV in the MV. From what I am aware the 24mm MV is no longer available new as the stock has now depleted.

I hope this has at least answered your question djhartist.