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Received my TMB Planetray II 4.5mm EP from eBay that I won (new, not second hand). Attached photos show it against my Celestron Omni 6mm EP for comparison. As you can see quite a lot bigger! ? Did a quick test through my small 70mm frac through the living room window on a distant chimney breast, and the view is good, a lot wider and easier to view through than the Omni 6mm EP. Of ourselves proof of the pudding is how it works on the planets and the moon, so I'll update this when I can after some testing with it on the night skies. BTW: as you can see in the images the green coating on the lens is very evident. There is no coating as far as I can see on the Omni 6mm.

I have 15mm Vixen LV EP which I bought off Astroboot a few months ago. It's a great EP for viewing with, and used it mostly for whole sun views of the Mercury transit yesterday. My issue with it is I have some coloured filters that I use for mostly planetary views (although I used them yesterday too on the sun to aid views etc), but some of the filters I have when I screw them in to the EP either won't go in correctly, or get tight halfway in when threaded in. I've checked the internal thread on the collar of the EP and that seems OK, with no obvious burrs, or signs of cross threading. I've also tested out the filters that has this issue with the 15mm EP in all my other EP's and don't get any issue when I thread them in to those EP's at all. I think the issue maybe the black paint/coating applied to the thread on the EP is making it tight for the EP's themselves, and due to manufacturing tolerances in sizes some filters will thread in OK, and others don't. My question is is there a simple way to get rid of the black paint in the EP metal collar (only the first 3mm where the filter screws in). If I got some paint stripper and sat the collar in a dish containing some 3mm of solution will this dissolve the paint away OK? The only other issue with the EP is on most of my other EP's the metal collar that the filters screw into can actually be unscrewed from the EP itself. On the Vixen EP if I try to unscrew the collar it also starts to unscrew some of the lower lenses in the EP, and so don't want to unscrew the collar if this might damage the EP by dislodging any internal lenses or other components of the EP itself. Anybody ever tried to clean away this black paint on their EP's before succesfully if they had similar issues? Any advise is welcome.

Just won a bid on a new TMB II Planetary 4.5mm EP on eBay from The Skies the Limit. Sure I know it's not a 'genuine' TMB Planetary from a few years back as the original manufacturers stopped making them for various reasons, but even so hopefully should be as good. For what I paid for it if it isn't then nothing too much lost! ?

Just had delivery of my a bright new spanking shiny 10mm 70 degree Explore Scientific EP to add into my other ES EP family (2' 25mm 70 degree & 1.25' 20mm 68 degree Maxvision). Tested it outside in the daytime just now against my stock 10mm EPs and straight away not only is the view much wider, but optically it is much clearer too. Of course the proof of the pudding will come when we get the next clear night to observe with (yeah, I know, I've just put that off for a least a week now with the new addition), so will write up a first light when it actually sees starlight. Keen to know how well it does with edge to edge images of the stars. Fingers crossed there may be some clear skies either real early Thursday morning (yawn!), or after midnight on Saturday, but with our British weather it could go either way, so fingers crossed!

Good Afternoon I was searching the web and i came across this EP Agena 1.25" Starguider Dual ED Eyepiece 60-deg AFOV, FMC - 5mm which happens to be very similar to the 1.25'' 5mm BST Explorer Dual ED eyepiece Branded ''Starguider'' . Wondering if they are the same specs,manufacture and quality but branded differently for US and UK ? Has anyone tried the Agena? I'm asking this because I still can't make up my mind for the 5mm EP I'm after. I have been told the BST 5mm is very good for the price, yet I can't find it locally, and that's why I'm looking at the Agena. and I'm also considering the Celestron X-Cel LX Series Eyepiece - 1.25-Inch 5mm. Which one do you recommend? your help is much appreciated.

OK, a little bored today, so I thought I'd line up all my EP's to attention. Half of them are stock EP's which came with various scopes (1st photo) , and the other lot in the 2nd photo are all EP's I've bought seperately. A quick run through of the guys are as follows (from left to right); 2nd photo; TMB Planetary II 4.5mm - Celestron Omni plossl 6mm & also 12mm - Vixen LV 15mm - Skywatcher plossl 17mm - Explore Scienticfic (2" EP) 25mm - Celestron Omni plossl 32mm 1st photo; Skywatcher stock 4mm and 2x 10mm - Celestron Stock 10mm, 20mm, 20mm erecting EP - Skywatxher stock 2x Super 25mm Plus I have two other stock EP's from a scope in the loft which are also stock Celestron's to at 10mm & 20mm EP's. To be honest I surprised myself how many I was awash with EP's! Hehe! I'm sure other members can outdo this shady mob of EP's too! OK fellas! Stand down now! Oh! With three pairs of the same stock EP's, I'll be in good shape when I buy a binoviewer at some point later on this year too! Edit: sorry the order of the pictures uploaded came up wrong, so edited to reflect that.

Hi all my fellow compatriots in astronomy. Apologies in advance for what I am about to do tomorrow, which no doubt will bring extra cloud cover over to annoy us all. Going to be getting my final addition to my EP collection by ordering up a 5mm BST Starglider EP. Heard good things about these EP's from everyone, so just the heads up for the extra clouds that will be coming our way for this oversight! Sorry! http://www.365astronomy.com/5mm-BST-Explorer-ED-Eyepiece.html

Hello everyone, I am relatively new to astonormy. I have a celestron Astro master 130eq with a focal length of 650mm. I have been able to enjoying viewing some of the planets and star clusters so far. I was considering purchasing one of the celestron x-cel LX eye pieces for getting an enhanced view of the planets such as Jupiter and Saturn Has anyone used these eyepieces and if so what would you recommend? Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi everyone! Like a lot of new amateurs I am completely overwhelmed with the choice of eyepieces. I have a Sky Watcher 250P Classic on a dob for visual astronomy. I have recently purchased the Hyperion IV 8-24mm zoom (with 2.25 Barlow) as my general roaming around EP. Now potentially looking for a high powered EP with large FoV to get those detailed views of planets and DSOs - the question is which should I buy? I was thinking something in the 2.5-6mm range and happy to go up to say £250 price point for the right EP. So, what is the wisdom? A 6mm and Barlow, or some where between 2.5 (pushing the scope) and 5mm without Barlow? Thanks! Lee

Decided it was time to get some form of bag/case for my numerous EP's so that when I use them outside in the cold then they can be all nice and snug in a bag until I need to use them to keep any dew off them, and not also potentially fall off from the telescope tray at all. Found this bag from fleabay which didn't cost the earth, and holds all but one of my EP's (which is a 2" Meade 5000 68 degree 40mm which is ginormous!). Arrived today, so managed to fit all my EP's and barlows in the bag too. Got plenty of foam padding inside, so should keep them all nice and well. If it is clear tonight I'll give it its first outing outdoors!

Hi everyone. I would like to upgrade my eye pieces to something better than the cheap Celestron set I have been using for the last 6 years. I have a Celestron Edge 800 now and really want to get the best views when observing our Moon and planets. I would rather buy 1 or 2 good EP's than a few more that are only slightly better than my current set. I am also considering a better Barlow or power ate. My budget is around £500 to cover 2 EP's. The new TelVue Delights got a good review in Sky at Night magazine. Any thoughts most valued. Thanks.

Hey guys, I am buying my "first" telescope in the near future (SW 150/750pds), although it's not available in my area till March. In the mean time I found a local, secondhand Orion 102 Mak. After starting with 15x70 binoculars, with its stock 25mm plossl has made me go wow and I'll never forget seeing Saturn's rings for the first time. Now I'm thinking I'd like to start getting another EP. I am leaning towards either: ES 24mm 68° Or Baader 8-24 mk iv These help max out the range of the 102, and please feel free to leave opinions, but I'm hoping they can both be good on the 150 in the future. The Baader is more versatile, but the ES gives me a good wide field, with more power then the binoculars. Cheers, Gary

Hello. I have a HR Planetary 3.2 mm eyepiece that I got today. It now magnifies to just above 200x. I have a sywatcher 130p and I observed Jupiter today and I found that the views are both hazy and much much darker than my stock 25mm and 10mm eyepieces. I'm sorry if such question has been answered but is it because the eyepiece is of 1. poor quality, or 2. too much magnification, or 3. do high powered eps tend to be of such nature? It would be really helpful if you guys could help me out. Thanks

Thinking of getting a planetary EP to use, and like the look of this EP, http://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-eyepieces/skywatcher-uwa-planetary-eyepieces.html, which would give me x240 on my Skywatcher Startravel 120 refractor (max x240), so at the maximum level of magnification for this scope, and x260 on my Celestron Astromaster 130 EQM (max x306), which is still well under for this scope. Read a few mixed reviews on them, so any feed back would be grateful, especially if you have used this EP on one of the above scopes too. Cheers, Gus