Best eyepieces for glasses wearers?

[MattJenko]

Hi,

As a bespectacled amateur astronomer, ensuring that eyepieces have decent eye relief and comfortable viewing positions for glasses wearing is important to me. I have not tried very many different eyepieces, but there is a big difference between ones suitable for glasses and ones that are not.

With this in mind, what would be your perfect eyepiece kit for glasses wearers? This is not going to be a complete set from one manufacturer or range even, as some in the range will be suitable, some not.

For starters, my limited experience and own eyepieces :

- Skywatcher Panaview 32 - you can pretty much stick your head in it.

- MaxVision 28mm - with the eyepiece extended half way, this is perfect (have heard from reliable sources others in this range are not suitable.)

- Hyperion Zoom 24-8 - Not the best, but fine for me.

Decent eyepieces are expensive items, so knowing that they will be comfortable and useable is key.

Thanks

Matt

[Dude_with_the_tube]

if you observe with glasses on then your key is long eye relief what will allow you to use them.

in that case only few eye pieces spring in my mind.

Meade 4000 series smoothside UWA. these dont have any rubber eye cups and have very generous eye relief,also give 84 degrees FOV,despite being sort of old or vintage,they still give and will give run for the money to any modern eye piece.Superb sharp image to the edge,perfectly flat FOV. cost:90-120quid.

Televue Nagler type 4. these where made specially for people with glasses in mind. 82 deg fov,very nice televue quality eye pieces. price range from 120-200 quid

Pentax XW. again long eye relief,nice sharp eye pieces,very comfortable to use and loved by lot of astronomers for they quality. Unfortunately 14mm suffered from field curvature,but i wouldnt say it was that bad that you can not use it.price starts from 185 quid .

All these can be bought on second hand market and price given is based on s/h. and will perform flawlessly in any scope fast or slow.

Baader Hyperions, also have 20mm eye relief and are great eye pieces,however,they do struggle performance wise on fast scopes in likes of F4.7 or faster.If yours is F6 or slower,you should consider them too. 68 deg fov and with tuning rings you can have 3 different focal length out of one eye piece.price wise you are looking at 70-98 quid

Televue Delos. 72 deg FOV 20mm eye relief and superb eye pieces. If i didnt had the set of meades 4000`s, i would take Delos any time.Same price range as Pentax XW.

I only gave you examples of eye pieces which i would consider personally,knowing that these will perform and views will be as expected.Obviously it is your wallet,your money and your decision to be made what you want

good luck with your choice and clear skies! 

[ronin]

Have glasses and use the BST Explorer's/Starguiders.

Even have the complete set, so I get the approximate parfocal advantage as well.

Perfect?

Well I am not going to sell them for anything else.

[alan potts]

I would say Dude with the tube covered most of the options but I didn't see Radians in there and in my books these are the best S/H buys on the market, they come in F/L starting at 3mm up to 18mm but are getting difficult to come by.

Alan.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

you are right Alan,

i missed off Radians. they are excelent buys second hand,but it seems that they dont pop up very often these days for some unknown reason.

[John]

If you are not bothered about a wide field of view the Vixen SLV's are very high optical quality, have a big range of focal lengths and have eye relief of 20mm with a 3 position soft rubber eyecup to help you find the right eye positioning. They cost £109 each. The optical quality of the ones I've used match the Baader Genuine Orthoscopic so are of the highest order. Their apparent field of view is 50 degrees.

The Radians, Delos, Pentax XW's and Nagler Type 4's already mentioned are excellent too (I use XW's and Radians myself) but, apart from used Radians, their costs can be rather high.

The eyepieces listed also take account of the fast focal ratio of your scope.

[MattJenko]

Nice call on the Vixens for a lower price high magnification alternative. I read your reviews of them with a lot of interest. I will also keep an eye open for second hand Radians and any of the other mentioned EPs, although I am guessing I am quite possibly joining a queue!

Also, I didn't mention F ratios in my original post, which was an oversight, as my Hyperion works great in the 80ED, but struggles with the Dob unfortunately. I wouldn't have known any different really but my new MaxVision is just sooo much better.

[Jim Steele]

I will also keep an eye open for second hand Radians and any of the other mentioned EPs, although I am guessing I am quite possibly joining a queue!

A 10 and 12mm on a popular online auction site at the moment (no there not mine). Sadly beyond my budget atm.

[MattJenko]

 Sadly beyond my budget atm.

This is the unfortunate refrain for me too.

[alan potts]

I think the thing with Radians now is that because there is only the 3mm still available new, people are hanging on to them, when one come up S/H at around 100 quid it don't stay on sale for long. I noticed a couple of late where sellers were trying for 120 which in my books is fair as they were close to 200 new. I have the 3,4 & 5mm and I wish I had never sold the 6mm, never even seen one since.

Alan.

[Dude_with_the_tube]

UK astro market is relatively poor ,majority of my purchases have been from either Germany or USA.

[101nut]

If you like zooms, and your pocket is deep enough, I found the Leica 8.9-17.8 ASPH eye relief easier for me than the Hyperion zoom.

AndyG

[bomberbaz]

An option I haven't seen mentioned are the celestron X-Cel range. Low costing (comparatively), good eye relief, reasonable FOV and pretty dam good in F5

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

All the EPs in my Sig are suitable, as I wear glasses too. The Nagler T4 series is great, but expensive. I also had a Pentax XF 8.5mm which was superb, and much cheaper than others from Pentax (like the excellent XWs). The WO zoom is very good, with 18.5 to 19 mm eye relief. It is no longer made, but sells under different brand names (TS sells one under the Astro Professional brand) the eye relief is much better than the TS HR Planetary Zoom or Lint Zoom. It does need quite a bit of in focus.