Help choosing eyepieces please?

[pianorealm]

Just out of interest, this is the company who make the Maxvision eyepieces (it's in chinese !)

http://www.joctech.com/

They recently bought out Meade and seem to be behind Explore Scientific and Bresser as well.

Ha.....my daughter did Mandarin at school would you believe...where is she when I need her?

I suppose the question is......are all the products...under different brand names equal in quality? I mean.....the tooling in a workshop/factory could produce the same product with maybe a degree of variation in quality control. The quality of the optics may vary, as may the coatings used. Who knows?

[pianorealm]

You only need the 2" format to give ultra wide and hyper wide views with medium to low power eyepieces. When the focal length gets shorter than 16mm or so the 1.25" body format is quite enough to accommodate the glass needed to deliver fine performance and, if desired, very wide angle viewing

That explains it well....thanks! I've a lot to learn.

[bingevader]

1.25" eyepieces are cheaper!

You can buy them with 2" skirts fitted like these.

There's just more glass in a 2" EP and they take more correcting to give a decent image.

 Who knows?

As you have said, after digging around, no one has commented unfavourably yet!

[John]

I suppose the question is......are all the products...under different brand names equal in quality? I mean.....the tooling in a workshop/factory could produce the same product with maybe a degree of variation in quality control. The quality of the optics may vary, as may the coatings used. Who knows?

That is a difficult question to answer. One theory I've heard is that the big brands / buyers get the "A" quality stuff and can contract bespoke specifications for things like quality control checking levels, lens coating depth and quality, glass type used and body styles. The smaller brands get the "B"quality stuff which is fine but, apart from the logo's etc, is supplied "off the shelf" and the "C" quality stuff which is sold unbranded or under a previously unheard of brand.

[bingevader]

Sound like a good theory. 

Which, considering the MV were supposedly destined for Meade, should put them fairly high up the list. The only proviso being the QC, but then we're back to the point about there being very few if any poor reviews and the fact that they're a small batch of one time only discounted EPs!

[Pig]

It is all really trial and error until you find your match  I have tried all 3 Maxi, Xcel, BST.  

Cash per viewing quality, I would go for second hand Xcels at around £40 - £50