Celestron 80 Explorer Scope 25mm Eyepiece ?

[laocmo]

I'm trying to get my granddaughters interested in astronomy by giving them my older Celestron 80 Explorer Scope. Unfortunately the X48 standard eyepiece is way to powerful for them to see what a beginner should first see. The image is too hard to find and hold steady. They made a X25 eyepiece wide field accessory eyepiece, but I can not find any available after a serious web search. Seems Celestron discontinued them. And no supplier knows of a substitute that will work for sure. Does anyone have one for sale or know of a source? Many thanks.

[moriniboy]

Hi does the scope take 0.965" or 1.25" eyepieces, are you able to upload a photo as the UK spec may be different to the US one.

Welcome to SGL as well.

[laocmo]

Here is the eyepiece I need:

Part # 93226

Diameter is 1 1/8 inches very fine inside threads easy to cross thread. Your site will not accept my photo. It is at

http://s104.beta.photobucket.com/user/laocmo/media/25mmeyepiece.jpg.html?sort=4&o=0

[cantharis]

1 1/8 inches? That would be VERY NON-standard. You sure it is not the common 1 1/4" ? Most common eyepiece sizes are 0.965", 1.25" and 2" - there are adaptors available to fit one to another, but 1 1/8" doesn´t fit anywhere.

[laocmo]

Yea it's 1 1/8 inch. Maybe that's why they are so difficult to find.

[ronin]

Suspect you have no chance.

Looks like the eyepiece was very much dedicated to the scope, and the focus adjustment is done by rotating a focuser then I assume moved the eyepiece in and out. Still odd that they made an eyepiece for it and didn't just use the 1.25" range.

I presume that this is the scope:

http://www.celestron.com/c3/images/files/downloads/ExploraScope_guide.pdf

Shaped a bit like a butternut squash.

[laocmo]

That's the one, nice little scope but somewhat hard to hold still at 44X power. I dissambled the eyepiece to see how it was made. Odd arrangement. The 1 1/8 inch chrome body has inside threads which thread onto a thin black ring. The ring has two small brass pins on it which fits grooves in a bigger black ring. This little ring then pivots. That's what makes it so difficult to screw the lens itself back into the thing without cross threading it. It wobbles on those pivots untill after many turns the chrome barrel is held more firmly by the fixed tube. The entire mechanism is heavily greased with what looks like clear silicone grease. This makes focusing very smoothe but makes for a messy dissasembly. I don't know telescopes but that arrangement looks really dumb compared to a simple drop in lens arrangement like on my microscope.