BST STARGUIDERS Vs Celesrton X-CELL XL

[Dark Lawton]

Hello,

I have a question as anyone ever tested these 2 set of ep's or owned both because am curious to with is the better of the 2 ep's

 

thanks

[John]

I've owned some of both. The X-CEL LX's are slightly better finished than the BST Starguiders but optically I could not tell any difference between them at all. They might even be the same optical design "under the skin" for all I know. The rubber eyecup of the X-CEL LX's is a bit flimsy compared with the more solid and tapered Starguider one. On both eyepieces the eyecup can be twisted up and down to find the best eye position for you.

Personally I think any differences will be down to personal prefereces for finish and ergonomics rather than any material difference in viewing quality.

 

[Chris]

I tested these eyepeices side by side. The conclusion I came to was they are pretty much identical optically but the ergonomics if the BST's made them feel like they had a slightly wider field of view even though they are both 60 degrees, the X-cell lx's felt like I was slightly less involved with the view. This was only noticeable when swapping back and forth and they are both very good value considering the quality of the views they give which are pretty flat sharp and fairly low scatter, plus confortable eye relief.

I'm a bit of a Celestron fanboy which sways me a little for some non logical reason, so I'd go for the Celestron even though I very slightly prefer the feel of the BST's...strange hey. 

[Ricochet]

I've got an X-Cel and a couple of Starguiders and I would say that they are similar enough that I would say the deciding factor is probably which focal lengths you want rather than which is better. Possibly there's a slightly higher transmission in the X-Cel but without having identical focal lengths to compare I can't be sure of that. I do prefer the eye cup design on the Starguiders and wish that there were more eyepieces that made use of them rather than fold down designs. 

[ronin]

In general nothing to really choose between them. Similar design but I would say the Celestrons do not have the ED glass, base this presumption on the simple fact that if they did then Celestron would advertise them as such.

Main difference is the focal lenths, the Celestron's 5, 7, 9, 12 is a good spread for planetary, just a few more options at the shorter focal lengths, however having the same number of eyepieces overall as the BST's it means you lose one at either 15mm or 18mm (cannot recall which). However having both 15 and 18mm in BST's I find is useful for DSO's.

I have the BST's for more or less one reason, when I bought mien they were Explorers and were if I recall £36 each, the Celestrons were significantly more.

To fill in at the lower end I purchased an Altair 6mm, which appears a copy/clone/rebrand of the WO 6mm planetry.

[Mak the Night]

With Pacific Rim manufacturers it's difficult to tell who the OEM is and whether they've sourced from other manufacturers themselves. There is a strong similarity in the Meade Instruments Meade 5000 series ultimately manufactured by the Chinese Ningbo Sunny Electronic Co., Ltd and the Celestron X-Cel LX series probably manufactured by the Chinese based (but Taiwanese owned) Suzhou Synta Optical Technology Co., Ltd.

I don’t know where the Meade eyepieces are actually manufactured though and the optical glass assemblies for both the Meade and Celestron eyepieces may come from the same source OEM (possibly in Kunming). AFAIK Barsta/BST are a Taiwanese company with manufacturing facilities/partner companies on the Chinese mainland and also very probably source from the same OEM’s. Synta/Celestron source many of their eyepieces from Barsta and Guan Sheng Optical.

If the X-Cel LX and Meade 5000 series have the same sourced lens components/optical assemblies the external housings were almost certainly custom manufactured by their respective source OEM factories (very probably Suzhou Synta in Celestron’s case). Whether Ningbo Sunny, Suzhou Synta and Barsta all sourced the optical assemblies of all three (X-Cel, Starguider and Meade 5000) from the same OEM is interesting to speculate.

Barsta/BST Paradigm

[Donkeiller]

I had a full set of BST Explorers and replaced, all bar the 5mm, with Xcel-LXs.

Optrically I could spot no difference (except for the 5mm) but preferred the build quality of the LXs. The  lenses in the BSTs were always rattling no matter how often I tightened up the retaining rings.

The 5mm LX was astigmatic, so kept the BST and sloved the rattle problem with locktite! 

[nightfisher]

I like the look of the LX but i had the problem of black paint flecks getting onto the optics, this is not a one of case and it ruined a nice eyepiece, so in this range i would stay with BST

[Chris]

2 hours ago, nightfisher said:

I like the look of the LX but i had the problem of black paint flecks getting onto the optics, this is not a one of case and it ruined a nice eyepiece, so in this range i would stay with BST

I'd forgot, but I had one like this, I had to carefully take the lens elements out and blow the spec off with a hurricane blower. 

[nightfisher]

I know of other people that had this, shame because my first impression was good

[Mak the Night]

12 hours ago, nightfisher said:

I like the look of the LX but i had the problem of black paint flecks getting onto the optics, this is not a one of case and it ruined a nice eyepiece, so in this range i would stay with BST

This is a known problem with the Celestron X-Cel LX's and has been documented on other forums. It's very probable that it affected certain batches. The 7mm and 18mm seem to suffer the most.

[nightfisher]

maybe i might look out for a 5mm and try again

[wookie1965]

I cannot say which is best as never had the X-cel`s I was advised to get the BST`s and I did an 8mm and 18mm they were so good for the money I purchased the 5,12.15 and 25mm I believe there is a 3.2mm and a Barlow lens out of same glass I will be buying these.

[Mak the Night]

1 hour ago, wookie1965 said:

I cannot say which is best as never had the X-cel`s I was advised to get the BST`s and I did an 8mm and 18mm they were so good for the money I purchased the 5,12.15 and 25mm I believe there is a 3.2mm and a Barlow lens out of same glass I will be buying these.

Barsta manufacture several Barlows and they are sold under various names. Barsta/BST Barlow lenses

Apparently, the short 2x utilises Japanese glass. I can believe it as it is very high quality. I can't detect any difference with this Omegon branded Barlow and my TeleVues.