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Hyperions or Celestron X-Cel LX ?


gfletcher

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Hi Guys

I currently own the following Hyperions:

8mm

13mm

24mm

I amconsidering whether to replace these with

X-Cel LX:

7mm

12mm

25mm

I have an f4.76 250px and a Skywatcher 80ED PRO f7.5

Do you guys have an opinion as to which would perform the best in these 2 scopes ?

thanks

Graham

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I sold all my Hyperions on and replaced with LXs.

To my eye, better corrected in the edge of the field. Tested at f6 down to f4.

Not so sure I can see much of a difference in my ED80 though, but it is only f7.5 :D

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Hi,

I bought LX eyepieces so I guess I'm in that camp...! They seem to work very well in my F5 Scope. :D

I saw your ad in Uk Astro B&S and thought it was an interesting choice to make..... But it seems that you are not the only one switching to the LX!!

Regards,

Jim

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I think if i were to trade in my Hyperions i would go up in quality wouldn't have to be a lot more expensive, but i do like the Pentax XF i have so for me this range or go the whole hog and get XW range, but i like my Hyperions so there staying...:)

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I have an f4.76 250px and a Skywatcher 80ED PRO f7.5

Do you guys have an opinion as to which would perform the best in these 2 scopes ?

Do you find your Hyperions don't work well in your 250PX? If they have issues you can't live with then that's reason enough to change them. But if not I can't see the point of changing :)

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Hyperions are very nice eyepieces but do show astigmatism in scopes faster than around F/7. At F/5 and faster this gets really noticeable I found, to the extent that the outer 25% of the field of view was not pretty to look at and I might as well have been using a decent 52 degree FoV plossl.

The view though an F/4 with a Hyperion might be "interesting".

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My pal just got back from the USA..... she got me 7mm 12mm and 25mm Xcel LX and also a 2x barlow.......all for £140......

Waheey....tell me I got a bargain.......... trouble is....the clouds have come with them....

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My pal just got back from the USA..... she got me 7mm 12mm and 25mm Xcel LX and also a 2x barlow.......all for £140......

Ohh very nice!!

Waheey....tell me I got a bargain.......... trouble is....the clouds have come with them....

Ohh not nice :)

We only have 1 LX, our 5mm star splitter :) but its very good at its job.

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For what it is worth, my experience of the optical performance of Hyperions has been better than that of others. I do not detect significant astigmatism (ie stars appearing as crosses) in my 17mm. Indeed the image is good enough to show up the coma (seagulls) from reflectors, which is removed by my Altair Astro (aka GSO and Astro Tech) coma corrector, which also increases the effective scope focal length by about 10%.

I do not however like the Hyperion much, with it being too bulky and having too much eye relief for me. It also requires too much in-focus for 1.25" use and too much out-focus in 2" mode for easy swapping with other eyepieces. It unscrews in too many places for the fine tuning feature to be useful in the field. But fine tuning does give the opportunity for a 15mm (approx) Hyperion which is not made (using a filter ring on the 17mm), which certainly is cool!

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I have very little experience, but thus far I am sold on the Hyperions. Granted I have only had them a short while, but previously all I had to go by was the ep's that came supplied with my scope. I do like the wide fov and the fact that they are modular so you can change the focal length. Therefore giving you an extra eyepiece or two for the cost of the ftr's.

How do the LX's compare price wise in relation to the Hyperions and would they work in a slow scope like mine? Not that I am going to change right now. Mearly inquisitive.

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I always thought that aberrations (in general) depended on eyepiece focal length, as well as scope f-number? Simply put, once you get below ~20mm focal length, most mid-priced eyepieces are (roughly!) the same. <G> If I *were* able to seriously invest in eyepieces, I'd replace my (longer focal length) 31mm Hyperion Aspheric with a Pan35, a 17/21mm Ethos. I might buy some specialist (shorter focal length) "planetary" eyepieces? But my 17, 13, 10, 8mm (whatever permutation!) Hyperions would still form the permanent backbone of my (half-decent) eyepiece set, for a while, anyway... :)

In retrospect, I just feel I have *already* spent far too much (unnecessary) money on the [mid-range] "eyepiece tango". :)

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