Orion Sirius Plossls

[Mak the Night]

I'm curios as to the OEM of the Orion Sirius Plossls. I assumed they were GSO but now I'm not so sure. 

Interestingly, some have recently appeared to have shed their undercuts, which is why I assumed they were GSO. I know GSO have deliberately stopped putting undercuts on many of their own eyepieces.

The 10 and 25mm Sirius Plossls (above) are quite decent in use and seem every bit as good as their Celestron and Sky-Watcher equivalents. My guess is that they're actually Synta as the Orion focal lengths of 6.3, 7.5, 10, 12.5, 17, 20, 25, 32 and 40mm exactly match the Sky-Watcher/Synta sizes. Unlike the Celestron Omni series there are no 12 and 15mm lengths.

My 10 and 25mm Sirius Plossls are suspiciously similar to this 'eyepiece set' that used to be sold on Amazon. There is a very strong similarity between my 25mm Sirius Plossl and the 25mm Celestron E-Lux Plossl. I'm fairly sure Celestron don't distribute the E-Lux anymore. 

I'm just curious.

[John]

They do look very like the Skywatcher SP plossls but I guess many manufacturers in the far east could produce something that looks just like that

Orion has had quite a few rebadged versions of lines that have also appeared under Skywatcher branding so there is a strong posibility that they are one and the same.

It's also possible that they have been produced by a number of OEM's including GSO and Synta with production being switched every now and then as contracts run their course.

 

[Mak the Night]

Yes, they could be almost anything. I think the original Omni series had similar focal lengths to the Sky-Watcher Plossls. Celestron and Sky-Watcher are both Synta of course. I read somewhere on the Interweb that the  6.3, 7.5, 10, 12.5, 17, 20, 25, 32 and 40mm lengths of the original Omni EP's were Taiwanese made. 

The Orion eyepieces often supplied with their scopes are much better than 10 and 25mm Sky-Watcher reversed Kellners anyway lol.

[John]

23 minutes ago, Mak the Night said:

....The Orion eyepieces often supplied with their scopes are much better than 10 and 25mm Sky-Watcher reversed Kellners anyway lol.

Yes, they were much better. Orion scopes tended to be a bit more expensive than the Skywatcher equvalents in the UK. Perhaps the better eyepieces were part of the reason ?

[Mak the Night]

27 minutes ago, John said:

Yes, they were much better. Orion scopes tended to be a bit more expensive than the Skywatcher equvalents in the UK. Perhaps the better eyepieces were part of the reason ?

Yeah I'm guessing it would push up the price a bit. Well, that and about £50 of software Orion usually throw in with the scope!

[ronin]

I would almost think they could be anyones. I would expect that the supplier changed with time.

Could try a look at the Long perng site and the United Optics site. Cannot see anything a match on Barsta, but there are Skywatcher eyepieces there. Barride have a selection that are similar and in 2 apparent options.

My guess would be Long Perng or United Optics. As far as the Chinese eyepiece market is concerned I get the idea that there is one big square building and that the 4 sides simply have a different manufacturers name on it, but once through the door it is the same place for all of them.

[Mak the Night]

17 minutes ago, ronin said:

I would almost think they could be anyones. I would expect that the supplier changed with time.

Could try a look at the Long perng site and the United Optics site. Cannot see anything a match on Barsta, but there are Skywatcher eyepieces there. Barride have a selection that are similar and in 2 apparent options.

My guess would be Long Perng or United Optics. As far as the Chinese eyepiece market is concerned I get the idea that there is one big square building and that the 4 sides simply have a different manufacturers name on it, but once through the door it is the same place for all of them.

They could be Long Perng or United Optics, but I've never seen any of their Plossls even marketed. I'm fairly convinced United Optics are responsible for most generic binoviewers and probably a lot of William Optics stuff. 

Plus, to make things even more confusing, many housings are outsourced from the same OEM's even if the optical glass is from elsewhere. So two seemingly identical Plossls may have totally different glass components but housed in the same sourced body with someone else's name on it. lol