Expensive eyepieces

[saturn5]

Most of my eyepieces are in the£60-£90 region,i was curious if those of you who have bought really expensive eyepieces,say £150- £200 or more thought the improved performance was worth the money.

[saturn5]

Sorry MartinB,i didnt see your excellent naglar report until after i had posted my thread,would still like to hear some other opinions on the subject though as i am thinking of maybe sneaking one into my collection

[centroid]

Most of my eyepieces are in the60-£90 region,i was curious if those of you who have bought really expensive eyepieces,say £150- £200 or more thought the improved performance was worth the money.

I think £60-£90 is a reasonable figure to pay for a reasonable eyepiece.

It is very often the case with optics, that the more you pay the better they are, but then there isn't a eyepiece that will penetrate bad 'seeing', no matter what it costs.

The FOV of a particular eyepiece will govern it's cost, and the wider the FOV, generally the higher the cost.

There is a very 'marked' difference between a cheap eyepieces, and those in the £60-£90 'bracket', but perhaps not quite such a significant difference as you go further up in price.

For example, the Skywatcher eyepieces (and a Barlow) that came with an ST80 that I once bought, were absolute 'c**p' compared to my Meade Series 4000 Super Plossls.

Another less 'marked' difference' was between the Astro Engineering x4 Image Mate (£59) and the x5 TeleVue x5 Power Mate (£150). I'm not saying that the TeleVue wasn't noticeably better than the Image Mate, because it was, but not such a difference as between the 'cheapo' eyepieces and the Meade ones.

So, yes you do get 'what you pay for', but I reckon the margin of benefit is far greater between those optics at the 'bottom end', and those in the mid-range of quality.

Dave

[GazOC]

Great post Dave. The other thing you have to take into consideration is at what focal ratio you need the eyepieces to work at. Anything below f6 and you may need to spend a bit more, anything over f8 and you'll be able to save a few quid.

[saturn5]

Couldn't agree more about the skywatcher eyepieces.

I have a bit of a mixed bag,but recently have been buying Orions,stratus 68-£85,ultrascopic ultra-£79and am quite impressed with them so i thought i would buy a zoom eyepiece.I bought the Orion explorer£49 and i'm a bit undecided,its not carp but then again its not brilliant either,maybe should have got the Orion Premium Zoom-£189,ouch :whip2:

[FLO]

I think Dave has hit the nail on the head: Whilst quality does increase the more you spend, there is a law of diminishing returns.

I think you are wise to aim for the £60-90 price-point.

[GazOC]

Have I mentioned how good Hyperions are......

[FLO]

Once or twice

Saturn5 mentions that he has some Orion Stratus, aren't they 'nearly' Hyperions?

[GazOC]

I have the Hyperions 5, 8, 11 and 21 and the Stratus 17mm, the coatings on the Baaders def. seem better and I believe the eyepieces are easier to connect to cameras....??

[John]

I tend to agree that, once you get to the £60-£90 price point the improvement steps beyond that are small and difficult to justify in terms of value for money. That said, I felt comfortable in trying some premium eyepieces (Naglers in my case) because a) I wanted to experience 1st hand what others were talking about in reviews and they tend to hold their value well so if I decide to sell at some point, provided that I have kept them in good shape, I can probably recover the bulk of their cost.

My plan has been to build a core set of good quality eyepieces (Tele Vue Plossls in my case) then, budget allowing, try out the odd more exotic one now and then.

The one thing I did want to achieve was to use eyepieces which I felt confident were allowing my scopes to perform as well as they can. IMHO eyepieces in the £60-90 range can certainly achieve that in most scopes.

John

[Macavity]

I think, for the middlin' experienced, ease of use comes into it as well. For that reason, (esp. my age, option of using glasses etc.) I'm another Hyperion man. The nearest I've come to "expensive" is the Televue 8/24 Zoom. Although a rather "specialist" item, I did note a phenomana rarely mentioned - The so-called "ring of fire" (Shades of Johnny.C)! Seemingly inherent to some POSH eyepieces, this manifests just as it says - Also a bit like the so-called "blackout" phenomena, but in technicolour.

Although unimportant in the DARK, it can render an expensive eyepiece almost UNUSABLE in daylight. BUT, small MAKs can be useful spotting telescopes too! Conversely this may make you (or me!) think astronomical eyepieces are "useless", based on terrestrial tests. I'm learning to give ALL eyepieces a second (third...) chance now!

To me, (quoted) longer eye relief seem to be key, whatever. Younger eyes may differ! As an exception to the rule, I found the Antares Speers Waler Mk.I could even be used WITH my glasses. Just ignore that glass-on-glass scraping sound. [partly serious]

[saturn5]

Thanks for the advice guys and my wife would certainly agree with you Steve that i am wise to stay in the £60-£90 bracket.

The ones i have now are so much better than the cheapos i used to use a few years ago,that just leaves a decent barlow on my shopping list,the Celestron Ultima perhaps?

[proflight2000]

I had a few good meade 4000 eyepieces that were far superior to the skywatcher ones I got. A while ago I managed to get hold of a meade 5000 26mm, wide view thingy. I put it on my scope and to say I was knocked back was an understatement. The eyepiece was totally comfortable to look through and the build of it showed a bit of thought in the making.

I am going to get a 5000 series 14mm one off FLO maybe next month now, as I cant afford the naglers, but now I know what to expect I can build up a decent set slowley. The really strange thing is, because I know it is a reasonably good quality lens I treat my 5000 26mm like a baby.

[MartinB]

The plain fact is it's impossible to know unless you've tried. Now when people rave about their expensive, exotic EPs just how objective are they being? Hyperbole seems to be a theme in many reviews of high end EPs and refractors but I just don't know. Similarly when people say a WO Uwan will deliver 90% of the performance of an Nagler, well how much does the missing 10% matter? That's why I'm attempting to write a completely dispassionate series of observation reports and my newly acquired Nagler 17mm T4. I don't feel at all precious about it. TBH I can't loose - if it's no better than a much cheaper EP then I'll be chuffed, but if it isn't I'll also be chuffed cos I can save some money!!

My problem is I don't have a comparable EP with which to share. If anyone with an equivalent Hyperion or Lanthanum is interested in doing a comparison with me they could send me their EP for a while and then they can have it back along with the loan of the Nagler. We could both write our observations.

[Macavity]

Being of an "enquiring" mind, I recently dismantled a Skywatcher's DEFAULT eyepiece. This (black 10mm) example seemed to cosist of a cemented doublet(?) plano convex element and a thin biconvex element - Probably most akin to a Kellner? I'd imagine a BASIC (even Skywatcher "Super") Plossl must be considered an upgrade. And that is indeed where I started... and still hang onto them.

[jakey]

I mainly use pentax xw and naglers, however an eyepiece that I also use and I use them very often are the park gold plossels. They cost a bit more than 90 quid but you will see a real difference with them. There is something about the colour and clarity they give to a object that I can't really put into words,on globs and solar objects they beat the naglers.

Venture scopes supply these. I will never part with them.

[John]

I mainly use pentax xw and naglers, however an eyepiece that I also use and I use them very often are the park gold plossels.

I think these are the same as Celestron Ultima's which are also very good eyepieces. As you say quite expensive new but affordable used.

John

[The Warthog]

I ahve just bought another Speers-WALER ep and a W70, both of which I find excellent, along with my 24mm SWA. I'm not quite ready to give a first light report, yet, until I get to some darkish skies with them. They run about $150 at present for the SWA, and $80 for the W70. I have heard people say that the difference between these eps and the Naglers is not enough to justify the extra money for the Naglers. I know the views I am getting from my back yard is very good, and the SWA is much more comfortable to use than a similar sized Plossl. I plan to complete my kit by buying a 17.5mm SWA and an apo Barlow, and that should be me sorted for the rest of my life! Yeah, right.

[Brass n glass]

I think these are the same as Celestron Ultima's

... also the same as Baader Eudiascpic, Antares Elite and one or two others. The Parks Gold versions cost a fair bit more than the others but are apparently the same thing with a bit of gold paont added. They are all very good value Japanese Plossls - almost as good as Televue. But I think the best-value eyepieces are orthoscopics. In terms of resolution they have often been equalled but rarely if ever bettered. Not bad for a design that's more than 100 years old and wasn't even intended for telescopes when it first appeared. What you get for your extra money is far greater viewing comfort and a far wider field of view - Hugh.