honest opinion of this eyepice set

[chrisormerod]

have been looking about at sets of eyepieces to use with my standard Skywatcher 130/900. I like looking at the planets and deep space objects. I don't have hunderds of pounds to spend and saw these and wanted to get a little feedback before I went ahead and bought them. They are a lot cheaper than most sets you can buy so I was wondering whether it was worth waiting and getting a slightly bigger set like the celestron set or the revelation set which looks good value.

http://www.f1telescopes.co.uk/shop/eyepiece-kits/meade-5-piece-ma-eyepiece-set/

 

http://www.f1telescopes.co.uk/shop/eyepiece-kits/revelation-photo-visual-eyepiece-and-filter-kit/

 

Thanks

 

Chris

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I would certainly avoid the Meade offering (MA are not as good as Plossls), but I am not overawed by the second one either. It is better to buy a few, good ones, with decent spacing between focal lengths, and add more as you find necessary later. Many of the EPs in these kits will just sit there doing little. I used just three quality Plossls for years before upgrading and adding more focal lengths.

[estwing]

not a bad starter set...I had the meade plossl 3000 set you can see them in the top of my ep case....

[estwing]

sorry didn't know they weren't plossls....avoid!

[Stu]

As Michael says, the MA eyepieces are pretty bad in my experience.

Getting a couple or three reasonable eyepieces for maybe £40 or £50 each would be a much better idea.

BST Explorers get very good reviews and are around £50 each.

[Mak the Night]

I have an SW 130M (900mm). For planetary I found a 3x Barlow utilised with a 15mm or 13mm EP could give me a good 180x-207x. DSO's would be best observed with something like a 32mm Plossl IMO.

There are two kits which may be of interest; both Celestron. The AstroMaster and the Eyeopener Kit. The AstroMaster is around £50 I think and contains a decent 6mm Plossl and a nice 15mm Kellner. It also contains a quite decent (Synta) 2x Barlow and some filters. The Eyeopener Kit is more expensive but contains some decent 32, 17, 13, 8 & 6mm (GSO) Plossls, a GSO Barlow and some filters. I think it's around £150 though.

This Revelation kit looks promising: http://www.telescopehouse.com/eyepieces/revelation-eyepieces/revelation-observers-eyepiece-kit-in-aluminium-case.html

I'm pretty convinced Revelation are all GSO made as well.

All of the black coloured EP's above are from the Eyeopener Kit, they are all Guan Sheng Optical regardless of the Celestron branding. If you don't want to buy a kit, a 32mm for DSO's and a couple of smaller focal length Revelations would be just as good IMO.

http://www.telescopehouse.com/eyepieces/revelation-eyepieces.html

The Bresser are very possibly GSO as well: http://www.telescopehouse.com/eyepieces/bresser-eyepieces/bresser-52-plossls.html

I also think this is a good price for this 2.5x  Barlow: http://www.telescopehouse.com/barlows/revelation-barlows/revelation-astro-2-5x-barlow-lens.html

I have the TS Optics version:

I paid more for it though! It's still the same GSO Barlow!

[jetstream]

An 18mm one of these https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-classic-ortho-bco-eyepiece.html and one of these https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-classic-q-225x-barlow.html would be very hard to beat.

It will give 18mm,13.8mm and 8mm focal lengths, not a bad place to start, and for 91 pounds the optics are excellent.

[bomberbaz]

57 minutes ago, chrisormerod said:

have been looking about at sets of eyepieces to use with my standard Skywatcher 130/900. I like looking at the planets and deep space objects. I don't have hunderds of pounds to spend and saw these and wanted to get a little feedback before I went ahead and bought them. They are a lot cheaper than most sets you can buy so I was wondering whether it was worth waiting and getting a slightly bigger set like the celestron set or the revelation set which looks good value.

http://www.f1telescopes.co.uk/shop/eyepiece-kits/meade-5-piece-ma-eyepiece-set/

 

http://www.f1telescopes.co.uk/shop/eyepiece-kits/revelation-photo-visual-eyepiece-and-filter-kit/

 

Thanks

 

Chris

what is your budget chris. As mentioned above 2 or 3 better eyepieces or even two and a decent barlow would probably be a far better option than the kits you mention.

[bingevader]

Similarly to Michael, I had two half decent plossls and a 2x Barlow lens for years.

I'd wholeheartedly recommend a barlow of some sort too.

There is also the second hand market, and plossls can be picked up reasonably cheaply.

My etx90 is now very much my travel 'scope, so I have been building up a set of plossls to stay in the case almost permanently so that I no longer need to take some of the more expensive EPs on holiday.

It may take a little while longer, but it can be worthwhile, I've added 3 plossls to the case for £70.

[chrisormerod]

I'd be happy to push the budget over time and get the odd eyepiece here and there. I was just curious as to whether they would be any good and from this its obvious they wouldn't so I will avoid.

I wouldn't mind spending 20 50 for a good eyepiece and build my own collection if it came to it. 

 

[Mak the Night]

I've never regretted buying the two kits that I did, but if I was going to replicate a kit out of individual pieces, I'd get something like the Celestron Universal 2x Barlow,  GSO (or rebranded GSO) 32mm, 15mm and 10mm Plossls (or nearest focal length equivalents) and a small Geoptik carrying case. I wouldn't bother with Wratten filters.

[gooseholla]

I had the GSO plossl set as my main kit for a couple of years. Still use it for my travel scope. I have never regretted paying £105 for it in 2011. I use all the focal lengths, the 32mm can have some attachment screwed on for t-rings/cameras, and I use filters often, but not everyone does. I don't know why everyone dismisses filters - Mars especially brings out detail in different filter light, but each to their own.  There is another version of the kit without filters, it comes with a couple of other bits instead, to do with photography I think. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them for a complete kit to get someone going.  However, the BST explorers are also good and you'll probably find you only ever use like 3 eyepieces, so again, each to their own.

John 

[Frank the Troll]

Ditto the BST's and or Baaders. You dont need lots of lenses, just add a decent 2" barlow with a 1.25 adapter

[Mak the Night]

31 minutes ago, gooseholla said:

I had the GSO plossl set as my main kit for a couple of years. Still use it for my travel scope. I have never regretted paying £105 for it in 2011. I use all the focal lengths, the 32mm can have some attachment screwed on for t-rings/cameras, and I use filters often, but not everyone does. I don't know why everyone dismisses filters - Mars especially brings out detail in different filter light, but each to their own.  There is another version of the kit without filters, it comes with a couple of other bits instead, to do with photography I think. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them for a complete kit to get someone going.  However, the BST explorers are also good and you'll probably find you only ever use like 3 eyepieces, so again, each to their own.

John 

I'm not over keen on Wratten filters but I would recommend the Baader Neodymium and I have recently acquired a TeleVue Bandmate Planetary filter.

[billyharris72]

If you're on a tight budget Skywatcher plossls are £20 a pop, and pretty good. Not great, but comparable to the Celestron Omni and Revelation ones -  much better than MAs. Assuming you already have 10 and 25mm MAs with the scope, I'd go for something like a 10 or 12 and a 32mm, with a half decent Barlow (Celestron Omni is good for the money). 

Of the two sets, the Revelation one looks decent, but not that cheap.

[Mak the Night]

I'm guessing the Sky-Watcher Plossls are also GSO. IMO the Omni 2x Barlow (also GSO) is often overpriced and the Celestron Universal/Sky-Watcher Deluxe is better quality than the Omni and usually cheaper.

[Louis D]

The Meade MA (Modified Achromat) design is a three element design similar to a Kellner.  Not bad in the inner 20 degrees of their 30 to 40 degree AFOV, but you can do so much better for just a little more money.  Plossls are well corrected over the inner 30 to 40 degrees of their 50 degree AFOV.  The more modern positive/negative designs like the BST Explorer eyepieces take AFOV, eye relief, and correction to a hole other level for just a little more money per eyepiece.  After that, the jumps in pricing for improvements in AFOV, correction, eye relief, stray light control, etc. become much greater.

[Linda]

Orthoscopic eyepieces are also good value for money for watching planet details.

[Mak the Night]

I wish I could find some budget orthoscopics. Mine have all cost an arm and a leg lol!