Antares 15mm Plossl - Who designed that!

[Adrian]

I recently purchased an Antares 15mm Plossl off another member of this forum. Whilst the views it gives are nice and crisp (from my first viewings at the weekend) it quickly became apparent that the design of the eyepiece body itself is very poor. (No fault of the member, may I add)

I am a glasses wearer, but I take them off to view (very little astigmatism in my right eye) so eye relief is not normally a factor, and I figured that 12-13mm of eye relief would be fine.

Unfortunately the designer decided to recess the eye lens into the body as much as the eye lens on my 32mm omni Now with a 32mm plossl that helps control the huge eye relief. On the 15mm it just uses it up. The pictures below show it with the 32mm for comparison.

From the eyelens to the top of the eyeguard is 13mm - that's all the eye relief used up even if you fold the eyecup down you still have to sock the eyepiece into your eyesocket to see the whole field.

It's sad that a really nice, crisp, bright eyepiece has been made so uncomfortable to use for no real gain..

Now, does anyone want to buy a 15mm plossl

[John]

Thats a shame - the Antares plossls are decent eyepieces but I can see why you are frustrated with the 15mm - there was no need for them to recess the eye lens anywhere near that much

[MjrTom]

Yeah you would have thought they would just have made the eye cup deeper so you have the option to fold it down for spectacle wearers

[Adrian]

I think I might see if I can remove the lenses and cut off the recess with a dremel Then glue the eyecup on to the top surface.

Worth a try before getting an Omni or similar

[John]

....Worth a try before getting an Omni or similar

If you decide on a replacement do check that it's not going to have the same issue. Many eyepieces are made by the same factory these days and just re-branded

[Adrian]

Looking at the various pictures the GSO/Omni seems to have little or no recess to the eye lens, the Antares is deeply recessed and the series 500 is between the two.

Scopes & skies has good pictures of the Antares plossls - 15mm upwards are recessed, 12.5mm and down are not.

[Andrew*]

I'm sorry about that, Adrian! Isn't it stupid?! Can't think why they do that...

Again, my apologies you're not happy with the eyepiece.

[Adrian]

Sssshhh Andrew - no-one mentioned you

The design is not down to you, and it's certainly not your fault that I didn't research the eyepiece enough to spot this before buying. As always: Caveat Emptor

[Adrian]

AAAAAHHHHHH HA HA HA HA HA (and other maniacal sounds from the garage by torchlight)

Off with it's head:

A bit of contact adhesive and we're done - and it's still a fold down eyecup

And yes - I took the lenses out to so the sawing (I'm not that crazy). Blackened the edges while they were out too

[AndyH]

Mwahahaha. Get in !!!

Eyerelief? I'll give you eyerelief?

Next step...........find the home address of the designer and post the sawn off piece.

;-D