Good EP's and Barlow for £40 - 50 a pop?

[twotter]

The Meade 4000s are better than the GSOs - not by much, but enough to make a difference. Now they are the same price, the Meades are the ones to go for if choosing between the two.

I own a mix of GSO Revelation & Meade 4000 plossls and my experience is that, to my eyes at least, they are on a par optically and have similar build quality. There was a price advantage when I bought mine in favour of the GSOs but the added extra for me was the Meades don't have a retaining ring whilst the GSOs do.

If I was buying plossls again I wouldn't hesitate to buy GSOs.

[great_bear]

the Meades don't have a retaining ring whilst the GSOs do.

You mean the "undercut" on the barrel of the GSOs? Yes, some people like this, and others do not. I think it depends on whether you've experienced annoying problems with undercut eyepieces getting stuck in your focusser, displacing the telescope when you try and pull them out.

Interestingly, on most of the GSOs, you can actually unscrew the barrel and screw it back on upside-down. This is a little-known eyepiece 'trick' to make it behave as if it had no undercut at all.