Who are Ostara?

[meteoriot]

Their Moon & Skyglow filter seems okay, identical to the Skywatcher LPR. I was worried considering the dirt cheap price of £9.95 with delivery for the 1.25". But so far we cannot tell the difference from the 2" Skywatcher.

I reckon they are all the same but rebranded.

[cs1cjc]

But neither Ostarra nor Sky-Watcher bother much with branding accessories. They will surely be unbranded, like their planetary eyepieces. One only hopes that the unnamed (Chinese?) factory has good quality control in place because there is no evidence that it is coming from the resellers. These are (presumably) pieces of precision optical engineering and I personally like more reassurance that the quality is high than that few people actually seem to have problems...

[meteoriot]

Not sure about skywatcher but my Ostara moon filter and eyepieces are branded. As are the Ostara Barlows.

[ajohnson]

I was also hoping to find some reviews on Ostara here but may end up writing one.

I have 2 bits of Ostara kit, the 3.8mm ED eyepiece and 3x Barlow. The 3.8 ED physically looks a bit like the old Celestron Excels, don't own the latter so can't compare directly. With the dreadful weather we have had it has not had a lot of use as it's way too powerful for the seeing conditions we've had so far. When I have used it it's been good in terms of clarity and lack of distortion, FOV on sites where this quoted, such as Astro-Developments seems to be 55 degrees, slightly less than the BST ED Eyepieces which are a quoted 60 degrees, but as I have an f5 Newt this id not an issue. Overall Eye relief seems to be good and a big plus in its favour is that I don't experience anything like the level of ghosting I get in my Skywatcher 6mm UWA. The objective lens is a decent size, my main gripe is that it can be difficult to like my eye up with it on occasion

I also have the 3x Barlow released this year and this is in almost permanent use with my webcam, it's nicely finished from aluminium and of the several barlows I seem to have accumulated it's one of my favourites.

Like many I don't have the budget for Nagler or Televue, and I wonder if my eyes would spot the difference. I'm currently looking at replacing the 10 & 25mm MA's I have in my box with some Plossls. I am torn between BSTs and Ostara ED's both seem to be roughly the same price and Parfocal within the range. With a 3.8 Ostara from fleabay in the EP box I'm tempted down the Ostara route, so if anybody has an objective view of one Vs the other I'd be glad to hear it, I don't want to buy several EPs at £50.00 a shot purely on the basis of being parfocal with a used one I bought for £25.00. Not that being Parfocal is a big thing for me at present!

[Xoyo]

I may be a newbie astronomer but I’m an experienced human and a life of many decades long tells me anyone who starts a post with ‘there are rumours’ and then speaks with almost sublime eloquence on everything you think you ought to listen to, means you shouldn't. Ostara is a brand, yes, but there is no way of telling which production line it really came from. I purchased a Bluetooth speaker made by Swiss+Go in a store in Ibiza Turns out they manufacture the exact same unit for JBL. The difference? The Brand. Price? JBL: £123. Swiss+Go: £29. The proof is in the acid test. Aberration. Fall off. Etc. not if the brand is up to par. Reviews can be biased. Test it. I’m an experienced DOP and I know lenses. I have a 3x Ostara Barlow and I’m happy with its performance so far. I’ll run some tests and post if/when time permits. Weather’s not been helpful so waiting for an ideal night. Clear skies!

[Louis D]

16 hours ago, Xoyo said:

I may be a newbie astronomer but I’m an experienced human and a life of many decades long tells me anyone who starts a post with ‘there are rumours’ and then speaks with almost sublime eloquence on everything you think you ought to listen to, means you shouldn't. Ostara is a brand, yes, but there is no way of telling which production line it really came from. I purchased a Bluetooth speaker made by Swiss+Go in a store in Ibiza Turns out they manufacture the exact same unit for JBL. The difference? The Brand. Price? JBL: £123. Swiss+Go: £29. The proof is in the acid test. Aberration. Fall off. Etc. not if the brand is up to par. Reviews can be biased. Test it. I’m an experienced DOP and I know lenses. I have a 3x Ostara Barlow and I’m happy with its performance so far. I’ll run some tests and post if/when time permits. Weather’s not been helpful so waiting for an ideal night. Clear skies!

Oftentimes, a European or American designed device will be manufactured in China.  At that point, the design is often copied or cloned and expensive parts of the product may be substituted to keep costs down.  They will perform nearly as well as the original, but typically fall short in extreme performance or durability.  That's part of why Televue owns their own factories in Japan and Taiwan to maintain control of their designs.  TMB lost control of their planetary eyepieces due to these issues.  If the item is cheap to manufacture like designer eyeglass frames, purses, or atheltic shoes, the knock-offs are often production overruns made in the same factory, minus the branding.

[John]

Nice to see life breathed into this 5 year old thread again !

 

 

[Louis D]

9 hours ago, John said:

Nice to see life breathed into this 5 year old thread again !

 

 

Seems fitting during the Halloween season to raise things from the dead: