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New addition to the ES family


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Just had delivery of my a bright new spanking shiny 10mm 70 degree Explore Scientific EP to add into my other ES EP family (2' 25mm 70 degree & 1.25' 20mm 68 degree Maxvision). Tested it outside in the daytime just now against my stock 10mm EPs and straight away not only is the view much wider, but optically it is much clearer too. Of course the proof of the pudding will come when we get the next clear night to observe with (yeah, I know, I've just put that off for a least a week now with the new addition), so will write up a first light when it actually sees starlight. Keen to know how well it does with edge to edge images of the stars. Fingers crossed there may be some clear skies either real early Thursday morning (yawn!), or after midnight on Saturday, but with our British weather it could go either way, so fingers crossed! :) 

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Just now, Davesellars said:

Congrats!  That's a dinky little thing for a 70 degree eyepiece! :)

Yep! Not much bigger than my stock 10mm EP's. Just hope that it packs a good punch visually for its size. Time will tell. :) 

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2 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

I had to re read the first line after I saw the pic, just to make sure I'd actually read 70 degree. Fingers crossed she performs well. 

Hoping so too. I'll post up the results from its first light as soon as possible. :) 

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Worked out the possible view through the new EP with Skysafari. The outer ring is the new 70 degree view of the new 10mm EP, and the inner ring is from one of my stock 10mm EP's with a 50 degree view. Just need to see if this is born out in reality when I can next observe M81 & M82 with the new EP. :) 

 

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Just be aware that at f/5, you'll probably see some astigmatism in the outer field since these are variations on classic wide-field eyepiece designs such as Erfles and Konigs which work best at f/10 and above.

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8 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Just be aware that at f/5, you'll probably see some astigmatism in the outer field since these are variations on classic wide-field eyepiece designs such as Erfles and Konigs which work best at f/10 and above.

Yes, kind of expecting that a little as most of my eyepieces suffer with this to some degree, some more so than others, although saying that the 20mm ES 68 degree EP seems to have very little that I can detect at least. It does seem more apparent though in the 2" 70 degree ES EP. 

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5 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

20mm ES 68 degree EP seems to have very little that I can detect at least

That's because it's based on the TV Panoptic design (a 1990's design) which has very little edge of field astigmatism at f/5.  It's sort of a negative/positive design in that the incoming light cone is first diverged prior to being converged at the lens, thus the wide, bulbous design.  Unlike a true negative/positive design, the field stop is outside the lenses rather than between them.  As a result, it can have a field stop basically as wide as the inside of the barrel, maximizing field of view.

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4 hours ago, Louis D said:

That's because it's based on the TV Panoptic design (a 1990's design) which has very little edge of field astigmatism at f/5.  It's sort of a negative/positive design in that the incoming light cone is first diverged prior to being converged at the lens, thus the wide, bulbous design.  Unlike a true negative/positive design, the field stop is outside the lenses rather than between them.  As a result, it can have a field stop basically as wide as the inside of the barrel, maximizing field of view.

I have a 70mm f13 refractor that I put away earlier this year which I plan to get down again and use. Although the aperture is smaller than my ST120 frac it will be interesting to see how some of the new EP's I bought since I put it away work in the scope. Sadly, I can't test the 2" EP, but all my others I can. :) 

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6 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Sadly, I can't test the 2" EP, but all my others I can. :) 

If you really like the scope, you could look into upgrading the focuser to a 2" model if the diameter of your tube matches one of the ones listed.

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18 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Yes, kind of expecting that a little as most of my eyepieces suffer with this to some degree, some more so than others, although saying that the 20mm ES 68 degree EP seems to have very little that I can detect at least. It does seem more apparent though in the 2" 70 degree ES EP. 

That's not surprising, the ES 68 series are outstanding EPs at their price point. I have the 24mm and 34mm (the 34 is a 2" grenade!). and I love both of them.

I'm sure the views of your little 10mm will compare favourably versus your stock EP though:-)

Dave

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2 hours ago, Louis D said:

If you really like the scope, you could look into upgrading the focuser to a 2" model if the diameter of your tube matches one of the ones listed.

It's only a 70mm aperture frac and was my second buy for a telescope the last year before I ended up getting my current ST120 frac. i hope at some point next year to be able to get a better scope than the 70mm one with at least a 100mm aperture with a similar f ratio strictictly for planetary and lunar work.

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2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

That's not surprising, the ES 68 series are outstanding EPs at their price point. I have the 24mm and 34mm (the 34 is a 2" grenade!). and I love both of them.

I'm sure the views of your little 10mm will compare favourably versus your stock EP though:-)

Dave

Yeah, I have the 40mm Meade version of the Maxvision (which is exactly the same, just badged up differently). It's blumming massive! If you launched it up in to space it would be a second satelite of the earth! Can hardly use it on my Az3 mount as I need to add a counter weight to balance it out with, which I hope to complete by next weekend I hope. Got all the materials to do it, just need to bring it all together & fix it to the mount. :) 

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I think these ES were a clone or rebadges of a Meade eyepiece. Can't remember which one it was now?? Was it Q70's maybe ?? The Meade was said to suffer quite badly with astigmatism though but given the price point I think the reviews may have been a little unfair.

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The Maxvisions were originally going to be Meade 5000 SWA's or UWA's but Meade cancelled the order so they were branded Maxvision and have been sold as that.

Some of the ES eyepieces may well have links to Meade models.

 

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Jinghua Optics & Electronics Co., Ltd. (JOC) now owns Meade and had been making Meade branded eyepieces for some time before that.  Explore Scientific (ES) is essentially the house brand for JOC high-end products since JOC now owns a majority of the company.  When Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan bought Celestron, that ended JOC supplying eyepieces to Celestron (the Axiom line, for one).  It was at that time the Luminos series was introduced.

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