Which ep?

[Leebert]

I've been given an official pass for a new ep to add to the standard 10 and 25 ep that I have.

I thought a 15mm might be a good size to use on it's own and barlowed.

I posted recently for suggestions and the BST explorer came out well and at £41 good value too. I've since been to my local shop and it was suggested to me that a Celestron x-cell lx 12mm would be a much better bet but it is a lot more expensive at about £71.

Question is, is the extra money worth it? Help!!

Many thanks

[assasincz]

For my 4.5" scope, I have purchased a Telescope Service 17mm 72° aFOV ERFLE eyepiece and it was pretty instantly my most-used eyepiece - dramatic improvement over the supplied ones, and was really rather dirty cheap.

[182570]

I have a 15mm BST and I found it to be an excellent mid-range eyepiece,it has very good eye relief and feels comfortable in use(especially if you wear glasses)it all depends if want to spend the extra,but I can recommend the BST.

[paul schofield]

Plus 1 for the BST, I have the 18mm and it is an all round good good E.P for the price, quite heavy and robust, feels like quality. And a great improvement on supplied ep's. You would not regret buying the BST. And if you had any problems with it, Alan at Skies The Limit is a great guy to deal with. Dont know about the Celestron. Good luck with your choice.

[todd8137]

i have a couple of X-Cel LX they are great eps i tried a 18mm bst there was a lot of curvature and trails with my 300p F1500 what scope do you have ? the x-cel lx are in a class of there own i would rather have one good ep than 2 ok ones go for the celestron one alan let me try a bst and a tmb they were both rubbish at the side by side test with the celestron,they might be that bit more but it pays to have good eps

[sticks]

I have BSTs with my MAK 127 and they're great - never seen a review that says X-Cel LXs are that much better - a little better perhaps, but not the difference between "Class" and just "OK"............. and certainly the BSTs are not rubbish in comparison!

[andrew63]

look at this review of both side by side by one of our members - they will both do a good job. While the celestron may have a slight edge most people are happy with the BST as a good improvement over the supplied with scope.

http://stargazerslounge.com/discussions-eyepieces/163180-celestron-x-cel-lx-v-bst-explorer-eyepiece.html

[spaceboy]

It depends greatly on what scope you have. The BST's are great value eyepieces and offer a larger FOV than plossls good eye relief but don't think they are going to give you the views you will get from a more expensive eyepiece will as they won't. In there price range they are an excellent eye piece but if you own a fast newtonian you are always going to suffer aberrations of some sort or other. As a rule of thumb the larger the AFOV of the eyepiece the more likely you are to notice aberrations of one kind or another. It has become apparent to me that in scopes around F/5 almost all eyepieces, aberrations start to become visible around the last 10-20% of view no matter what the eyepiece design. Depending on how much you spend on an eyepiece determines how apparent these aberrations are. Even mid range Televue eyepieces will show signs of coma but astigmatism and distortion is so well corrected that the outer edges are not a distraction like in cheaper eyepieces which can show several aberrations. If you have a slow scope which is more forgiving on eyepieces then budget eyepieces will show a vast improvement over EP's that are sold with most synta scopes and will offer more value for money. It is also worth considering that we all different and what may work for one person may not work for another and there is no substitute for giving an eyepiece a go for yourself. If you can pop along to a star party or astro society and have a look through members scopes that are similar to yours.

[Leebert]

Thanks very much for the detailed replies and link.

I have two scopes that I am thinking of using the ep with, a 200p (F5) and a 127 mak (F11 .8).

I think, for me, a combination of budget and focal length means the BST has a slight advantage. The 12mm xcell is possibly a bit close to the 10mm one I already have. If Celestron did a 15mm xcell then I would probably go with that but as they don't and BSTs seem to get good reviews, I think that's the one for me.

Thanks and clear skies all

[todd8137]

I have BSTs with my MAK 127 and they're great - never seen a review that says X-Cel LXs are that much better - a little better perhaps, but not the difference between "Class" and just "OK"............. and certainly the BSTs are not rubbish in comparison!

i am only telling you what i got with the bst/tmb range of eps,i have a sw 300p reflector the tmb and bst had a fair bit of bloated and shown a lot of field curvature and trailed stars for about 30% from the outer hedge the x cel lx do not suffer with this all so they were not that good,so i let Jupiter drift across the fov it was only in focus when in the about 55%of the ep the x-cel lx in my scope where 85 percent brighter as well on the great orion neb what i tested it on and the tmb/bst did have a good view but the xcels seemed more pin sharp brighter also with the xs you could se hints all over the place of green the sw uw 6820 showed the same green hue the tmb and the bst also did not shoe any hints of color

so has i said the tmb and bst was not that good in my 300p f1500mm

cheers