Higher power eyepiece - advice please

[RickS25]

I am looking for a good quality 7mm eyepiece for planetary viewing. I have a 10" Revelation f5 dob and the high mag eyepieces I have at present are a 6mm WO planetary which gives me 208x mag and an 8mm Vixen lvw giving me 156x mag. The 6mm is often too much power but I think I could use more than the 156x I am getting from the 8 mm. A 7 mm would give 178x.

I have recently bought a 2nd hand 13mm Nagler and am blown away by the quality of view with it, but I am not quite wanting to spend £250 for a new 7mm Nagler! Would the WO 7mm UWAN or 7mm Nirvana be a good substitute with regard to quality of view - especially for Jupiter?

Any advice would be very welcome!

[John]

I've compared the Nirvana / UWAN's with their Nagler counterparts and they are very close indeed to the performance of the Nagler.

[rwilkey]

The Celestron Luminos 82 degree is a fine choice at this magnification in my view, I have its older cousin, the Axiom LX and it gives superb views, not a bad price at £125 here: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-luminos-eyepieces.html

[ronin]

There is the Celestron X-Cel at 7mm.

[RickS25]

Many thanks for the recommendations. Now just got to make a decision. The Opticstar shop in Sale, Manchester is quite near me and they have the Nirvana and Celestron eyepieces so I think I will pop over at the weekend for a look and then try and deecide which one! Around the £100 - £130 is about my limit so its good to know you can get very good quality at that sort of price.

[JonF]

There is the Celestron X-Cel at 7mm.

I'll let you have some news on how this one would work in a couple of day - I've just ordered one, and I have the same scope as you

[RickS25]

I'll let you have some news on how this one would work in a couple of day - I've just ordered one, and I have the same scope as you

Thanks, that would be very helpful!

[John]

The Celestron Luminos 82 degree is a fine choice at this magnification in my view, I have its older cousin, the Axiom LX and it gives superb views, not a bad price at £125 here: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-luminos-eyepieces.html

I've no doubt your Axiom LX's are good Robin but I'm wary of the Luminos because reports such as these:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/those-luminos-eyepieces-on-sale?reply=374815349543436321

[jetstream]

John,you are correct to be wary of the Luminos.The thing is they can put up excellent views,but...in my 10" f4.8 dob they tend to ghost on the planets,but eye position can eliminate this mostly,they have a lighter sky background,however I notice no edge of field brightening as do some.My 23mm is astigmatic with the goldfish bowl effect-and yet on the Veil the view with the OIII was so good,excellent actually.The 10mm is a great EP on DSO and the 7mm gives crisp clean views of Jupiter/Saturn.

In my 90mm f7 refractor all these problems listed are not an issue,except perhaps some minor light scatter.For me this is all too complicated,so I don't recommend them.In this price range the ES 82 wins hands down IMHO.

[rwilkey]

I've no doubt your Axiom LX's are good Robin but I'm wary of the Luminos because reports such as these:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/those-luminos-eyepieces-on-sale?reply=374815349543436321

Hi John, you are most probably right, but personally I have had no issues with them, at least up until now, since I have bought into the ES82's which I have to say are a lot better, noticeably better, good dark sky background but tighter eye-relief.  The good thing about the Ax's/Luminos was the twist-up eye shield which I rather liked.

[Phil Creed]

I looked through a 7mm Axiom LX; darn good eyepiece for the price, that's for sure.  I've also looked through a 6.7ES-82 and that's a mighty fine one, too, but the usable eye relief on the 7AX-LX was *much* better than on the 6.7ES-82.

The 7mm eyepiece of choice, if you need eye relief is the Pentax 7XW.  It's hard to find on the used markets, and it's not exactly cheap at retail prices, either.  I've got one, and I have owned a 7T6 Nagler a few years ago.  Both of these are exquisite oculars; I just like the longer eye relief of the 7XW more.

Clear Skies,

Phil