New additions: Celestron Xcel LX's 7mm and 18mm

[F15Rules]

I'd identified a couple of magnification gaps in my eyepieces, at 7mm and 18mm (you can see my others in my signature)..although I have some good, premium quality units, I'm not presently in a position at the moment to buy Pentax XWs, TV Delos/Delite or Morpheus, so I decided to look for a pair of decent, but cheaper alternatives.

After much reading up online I decided to plump for the Xcel LX's from WEX at £59 delivered. They get good write ups pretty much universally and the price was right. They arrived after just 3 days and with signed for delivery.

The packaging was very secure and each eyepiece came in a. Colour printed box, bubble wrapped and inside a nice plastic bolt case.

The build quality looks excellent for the price, reminds me a bit of a smaller Morpheus. Large eyelenses on each ep, with 16mm eye relief and an extremely smooth operating rotating eyecup. These seem very comfortable in brief daytime testing.

Checking out the views I was delighted to note that the LX's are parfocal with my Pentax XLs and Morpheus eps - a real bonus.

So far, so very good. I'll post more after first light:-).

Dave

[nightfisher]

I had the 7mm and it suffered from black flakes appearing in the lens groups, shame as first impressions were very good

[F15Rules]

15 minutes ago, nightfisher said:

I had the 7mm and it suffered from black flakes appearing in the lens groups, shame as first impressions were very good

Hi Jules

Did you send it back for a replacement?

First quick look in daylight looked very good, sharp to within c97% of the edge, and looked very sharp on axis. And no signs of debris so far:-).

Dave

[knobby]

Love mine, I have the 5,7,12,18 and 25

[nightfisher]

12 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Hi Jules

Did you send it back for a replacement?

First quick look in daylight looked very good, sharp to within c97% of the edge, and looked very sharp on axis. And no signs of debris so far:-).

Dave

No i thought it would clean, silly me but it just got worse, ended up looking like i had brillo padded the lens, i would like to think this was early batch as not heard of this lately

[John]

I had the 25mm in that range. I bought it used and it performed very well in general. I had a similar issue to Jules though. There seems to be a heavily convex lens in the design. If you get any dust / debris on that lens it's bang on the focal plane so you see it clearly whenever you observe against an extended target. It's very hard to clean that lens as I found to my cost !.

Otherwise I was impressed with the build and performance. I thought it might just be the 25mm that had this issue with the potential for dust but perhaps not. Keep the eyepiece well capped when not in use and resist the temptaton to have a look inside and you should be fine !.

 

[spaceboy]

I had the same issues with hyperions and was one of the main reasons why I favoured the ES eyepieces with their waterproof air tight design. I can blast away with a rocket blower all day long and nothing finds its way between the inner elements

[nightfisher]

11 hours ago, John said:

I had the 25mm in that range. I bought it used and it performed very well in general. I had a similar issue to Jules though. There seems to be a heavily convex lens in the design. If you get any dust / debris on that lens it's bang on the focal plane so you see it clearly whenever you observe against an extended target. It's very hard to clean that lens as I found to my cost !.

Otherwise I was impressed with the build and performance. I thought it might just be the 25mm that had this issue with the potential for dust but perhaps not. Keep the eyepiece well capped when not in use and resist the temptaton to have a look inside and you should be fine !.

 

It seemed to me that the debris in the field of view was internal black paint flakes, after this i went on to BST eyepieces for a good while