Celestron Luminos eyepiece

[davehawkins]

I'm looking for a 10mm eyepiece to replace the cheap sw ma I have which came with my scope.

I like the look of the Celestron Luminos but I have heard that they suffer from edge of field lightening.

Has anyone had experience of this with these.

Explorer 200p Eq5 sw uw 6 & 9mm, BST starguider 8 & 25mm, Vixen 15mm SLV

[triton1]

I would be tempted to stick with the ep,s you have maybe add a 12mm starguider you have an 8 and a 9 so 1mm shouldn't make much of a difference unless of course you want the larger fov.?

[jetstream]

I own a 10mm Luminos and it does have an issue with ghosting a bit on very bright objects. Eyeball reflection I think. That being said, this eyepiece does offer sharp performance on the planets and the moon. It also does very well on DSO, showing me Markarians Chain etc in my 10" dob.

Some dislike these eyepieces so don't pay too much or look for much re sale value IMHO. If bought cheap enough they are an excellent value.

[davehawkins]

Gerry's right I am tempted by the larger field of view otherwise I probably would have gone for another Vixen SLV because I like the 15mm I have

but I got it cheap at £85, theyr'e about £120 normally.

[Ruud]

EOFB, the canals on Mars or witches, I would not worry too much about them. The reports are anecdotal at best.

The luminous, however, is not an eyepiece that shines in fast scopes. Ciel et Espace did an optical bench mark test and they conclude that the Luminous 10mm did not do well at f/3.5 and f/7.

201306__6_oculaires_10mm.pdf

The comfort zone for this eyepiece lies closer to f/10.

[Ben the Ignorant]

1 hour ago, Ruud said:

The luminous, however, is not an eyepiece that shines in fast scopes. Ciel et Espace did an optical bench mark test and they conclude that the Luminous 10mm did not do well at f/3.5 and f/7.

201306__6_oculaires_10mm.pdf

The comfort zone for this eyepiece lies closer to f/10.

I saw that review in Ciel&Espace, too. Teleskop Service recommend Luminos eyepieces for flat-field refractors and Edge Schmidt-Cassegrain's, but not for objectives that produce a curved image.

[Mak the Night]

The 10mm Luminos tends to show some ghosting and glaring on a bright Moon. The EOFB is often noticeable but it never really bothered me. I wouldn't recommend using it with a fast scope. I last used mine observing Mars at 250x which it did quite admirably.

I was underwhelmed by the twist-up eyecup but overall the Luminos is a beautifully engineered eyepiece and looks every bit as good as its Axiom predecessor. It is some 340 grammes (3/4 lb) though. There are rumours of it being de-shrouded by some distributors and being sold as bino pairs. I eventually swapped mine for a 10mm Delos. If you don't mind the 44.4° FOV the 10mm Baader Eudiascopic is very good. 

[Mak the Night]

1 hour ago, Ruud said:

EOFB, the canals on Mars or witches, I would not worry too much about them. The reports are anecdotal at best.

 

I've heard that the witches who live on the Martian canals are rather concerned about the EOFB in the 10mm Luminos!  

[Ruud]

Maybe 11mm Explore Scientific 82º is a better choice.

I have an f/5 myself and tried the ES 11mm in it. Optically, the explore scientific is very good. I was impressed with the sharpness and contrast. Colour is nice and neutral. I noticed no light scatter issues, no ghosting either. The field stop was blurry, which I don't mind too much. There is a real drawback though. The eye lens is recessed too deeply into the top of the eyepiece. Had my lashes been shorter, I'd still have the ES 11mm. (I got a Delos 12mm instead.)

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

If you can stretch to a Delos, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. I have the 14 and 8mm, and they are superb.

[F15Rules]

Another wide field option is the Baader Morpheus which is available at both 12mm and 14mm (I have the 14mm and love it). 

Morpheus has a very wide 76deg FOV and would be sharp over most of that in your reflector, I would think to at least 70deg, ie. a match for Pentax XWs. Not too heavy either, only c345 grand. Great eye relief and huge eyelens.

Dave

[YKSE]

17 hours ago, Ruud said:

EOFB, the canals on Mars or witches, I would not worry too much about them. The reports are anecdotal at best.

The luminous, however, is not an eyepiece that shines in fast scopes. Ciel et Espace did an optical bench mark test and they conclude that the Luminous 10mm did not do well at f/3.5 and f/7.

201306__6_oculaires_10mm.pdf

The comfort zone for this eyepiece lies closer to f/10.

There're some questions about how the tests scores are made.

Or I quote the questions here again for simplicity:

For example, there's only 16 rows of different tests, where does the number 20 comes from? If we simply add the scores for all the 6 EPs, we get 78/6(Delos), 71/6(Ethos), 58/6(XW), 52(NAV), 51(UW), 40(Luminos), how do these numbers converted to 16/20;16/20 ...etc?

There're 8 tests (50% of the tests), using wave front error for evaluating, If we look closer at Delos and XW in these tests, Delos score 38/6, and XW 24/6. The worst XW wave front error is 1/19. Does it have any practical meaning? most telescopes are closer to 1/4 wave front error, that's 5 time more.

The first two test are about chromatical aberations, I'd have expect some measured values than descriptive words.

I'm sure the author has answers to all these questions, still, translating many technical measurements to ONE simple number is not very easily done, IMHO.

 

[John]

7 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

If you can stretch to a Delos, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. I have the 14 and 8mm, and they are superb.

+1 for this.

I recently purchased a 17.3mm Delos from an SGL member. It's proving to be a wonderful eyepiece both for me and for others that view through my scopes. Very comfortable to use and with practically no optical shortcomings that I can see.

The views of objects such as the Ring and Dumbell nebulae and Messier 13 that this eyepiece produces when used with my 12" dob have caused gasps from folks at recent society star parties that I've attended.

 

[jetstream]

Televue's coatings really do seem to make a difference on nebula...

I have the 7mm Luminos, no ghosting, no EOFB, acceptable scatter and planetary views that rival much more expensive eyepieces... oh and no astig @ f4.8.

[garryblueboy]

I have them all bar 19 mm  and find them excellent  EFOB doesn't bother me and only affects some on certain objects the views are crisp and the wide view and build quality  and price these can be had for makes them in my opinion a good buy having also had the BST eyepices these are in a differarant league 

[YKSE]

4 hours ago, John said:

+1 for this.

I recently purchased a 17.3mm Delos from an SGL member. It's proving to be a wonderful eyepiece both for me and for others that view through my scopes. Very comfortable to use and with practically no optical shortcomings that I can see.

The views of objects such as the Ring and Dumbell nebulae and Messier 13 that this eyepiece produces when used with my 12" dob have caused gasps from folks at recent society star parties that I've attended.

 

John,

I seem to recall there're some EOFB and CA sensitive eyes seen EOFB in 17.3 Delos and more CA than other Delos, what's your verdit?

[Chris]

I've previously owned the 7mm and 15mm Luminos (I think I might have actually sold them to Garry? lol). I really enjoyed my time with the Luminos, they are very well made, very sharp, and the best eye relief I've come across in an 82 degree eyepiece. I was worried about EOFB before buying them, but it's no big deal and I believe more premium EP's even show this.

I've also tried the ES82's twice! and just can't get on with the tight eye relief even if they are tack sharp to the edge down to f/5 and built to last a hundred years.

  

[John]

1 hour ago, YKSE said:

John,

I seem to recall there're some EOFB and CA sensitive eyes seen EOFB in 17.3 Delos and more CA than other Delos, what's your verdit?

Only having the 1 Delos I can't do that comparison I'm afraid. The 17.3 seems to sit very well with the Pentax XW's it's used with and I've not seen any obvious issues with it, as yet. I know that the 14mm and 17.3 mm Deloi reach focus further in than the others in the range but thats why I was attracted to the 17.3mm Delos - it's focus point is close to the XW's.

Having tried a lot of eyepieces over the years I seem to get a feel for whether I like one or not quite quickly these days. The 17.3 Delos is definitely in the "like" category at present

Apologies to the original poster - Luminos is the topic, not Delos !

 

 

 

 

 

 

[garryblueboy]

 

15 hours ago, Chris Lock said:

I've previously owned the 7mm and 15mm Luminos (I think I might have actually sold them to Garry? lol). I really enjoyed my time with the Luminos, they are very well made, very sharp, and the best eye relief I've come across in an 82 degree eyepiece. I was worried about EOFB before buying them, but it's no big deal and I believe more premium EP's even show this.

I've also tried the ES82's twice! and just can't get on with the tight eye relief even if they are tack sharp to the edge down to f/5 and built to last a hundred years.

  

Yes Chris you did I'm pleased to say