Are These The Same?

[Alkaid]

Celestron Omni 32mm plossl versus Skywatcher 32mm plossl.

They both have the same appearance except for the chrome barrel finish on the Celestron.

Same AFOV - 50 degrees.

Celestron retails at £49.50 on Flo's website, but the Skywatcher is only £30.00.

Is it just the chrome finish on the Celestron that one pays extra for?

[John]

The Omni plossls that I had a while back seemed to be wholly made from alloy and were somewhat lighter than Skywatcher plossls. Optically they seemed about the same.

The Vixen NPL range are a better quality plossl, in my opinion.

[NGC404]

Skywatcher - Multi-coated optics

Omni - Fully multi-coated optics

[bingevader]

John knows what he's talking about. I'd take his advice and get the 30mm Vixen NPL if I were you. 

[Alkaid]

Skywatcher - Multi-coated optics

Omni - Fully multi-coated optics

Ah ha!

Missed that - thank you.

John knows what he's talking about. I'd take his advice and get the 30mm Vixen NPL if I were you. 

Yes, those Vixens look very nice.  What I was trying to do was to get the widest true field in my 90mm/900 refractor, without buying a Teleview panoptic... 

The 30mm Vixen would give a true field of 1.67 degrees, whilst the SW and Celestron units would yield 1.77 degrees.  Not much in it eh!  I will take Johns advice and get the Vixen.

[Naemeth]

I'd either go for the Vixen 30mm NPL or the TeleVue 32mm plossl, of course, the latter is a lot more expensive (much cheaper if you get it second hand)

[KeironKK]

John knows what he's talking about. I'd take his advice and get the 30mm Vixen NPL if I were you. 

I'd second that advice. I've had one of those 30mm NPL's for a while now and despite having a rather nice 21mm Hyperion (which converts to around 33mm when the first lens group is removed, I thunk,) the Vixen is practically welded to the focuser. The view, in my 200p, is crisp and clear, with a slight kidney bean effect towards the edges, but you have to look for it. All glass surfaces are multicoated as far as I can tell and the build quality is pretty good. The only niggle is the eye cup. I found it took a bit of getting used, being a twist up design.