Meade Series 5000 HD-60 vs AstroTech Paradigm (BST StarGuider)

[Louis D]

I recently picked up a used set of the AstroTech Paradigm (BST StarGuider) eyepieces minus the 3.2mm version (for which I have no use) to compare to my Meade Series 5000 HD-60 eyepieces.  I wanted to do this because I'm always recommending them to beginners looking to upgrade their eyepieces despite never have used them.  I haven't had a chance to use them under the stars, so a first light report will have to come later.  I did measure their apparent fields of view (AFOV) and field stops from which I was able to derive their effective AFOV (eAFOV).  I also tried my best to take pictures of each field of view when looking at a yard stick as I did in another thread.  In addition, I took some beauty shots to illustrate the size differences and eye lens recession differences.

First off, the data table:

As you can see, the HD-60s tend to have wider AFOVs in the 12mm and below focal lengths while the Paradigms tend to be wider at 18mm and above.  Also notice the much shorter usable eye relief of the 18mm and shorter Paradigms due to the excessive eye lens recession.  All eye lenses are the same size within a give focal length range except at 18mm where the Paradigm's is smaller (while the AFOV is larger) leading to less eye relief even before eye lens recession compared to the 18mm HD-60.

Also notice how much lighter the Paradigms are their HD-60 counterparts.  Most of this can be attributed to the rather large and heavy twist-up eye cup of the Meades.  The Paradigm twist-up eye cup is rather compact by comparison.  As can also be seen from the beauty shots below, the Paradigms are always shorter than their nearest HD-60 counterpart.  This also tends to help them be lighter than the Meades.

Here are some beauty shots to compare them side-by-side.  I notice I needed to swap the 4.5mm HD-60 with the 5mm Paradigm to keep them in focal length order.  Oh well. 🥴

Notice how flush mounted the HD-60 eye lenses are compared to the Paradigms with their rubber eye cups flipped down and retracted.  The Paradigms refuse to retract all the way.

And finally, the views through the eyepieces with no pixel resizing:

So far, just from the above daytime usage, I'd have to give the 18mm and 25mm Paradigms the advantage over their Meade counterparts thanks to their wider AFOVs and the 18's seemingly better edge correction.  At 12mm and below, the Meades have it over the Paradigms in terms of AFOV.

Of all the Paradigms, only the 25mm Paradigm is comfortable to use with eyeglasses thanks to its large eye lens compensating somewhat for the inexplicable eye lens recession.  All of the Meades are easy to use with eyeglasses thanks to their nearly flush mounted eye lenses that I tried to illustrate above, although the 4.5mm and 6.5mm are starting to get tight.

When I get some time under the stars with them, I'll add more thoughts on field aberrations, stray light control, and contrast.

[alan potts]

Look forward to seeing what you have to say, I'm a bit like you were, often told beginners to buy them without ever having one. Your other set the Meade HD were very overpriced over here when they came out, so much so I moved onto TeleVue, I had the SWA range and most of the UWA range beforehand. HD 's here in Bulgaria were 200 e each, may even have bee 225e, so long back I forget now.

[vlaiv]

I love the ruler test.

Paradigms look a bit sharper in lower focal lengths? Is it just me or is the effect real? Field stop looks better defined as well.

[Ricochet]

Nice one Louis. Hopefully we're still recommending them after you get the chance to star test them all. 

[Louis D]

57 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I love the ruler test.

Paradigms look a bit sharper in lower focal lengths? Is it just me or is the effect real? Field stop looks better defined as well.

The Paradigms have a better behaved field stop likely due to less exit pupil aberrations.  I was struggling with the camera to get a sharp image center and edge with some of the Meades because the center or midpoint would start blacking out once I had pushed in far enough to get a sharp field stop.  What you see is the best compromise I could get.  This may mean the camera/eyepiece alignment was suboptimal across the entire field.  Seen with the eye, there were no obvious exit pupil issues and the field stops all appeared sharp.

I was able to pick up the wood grain equally well in all of the shorter focal length eyepieces regardless of brand at best focus.  I'll have to defer picking winners until I can star test them.  At first blush, they are all excellent performers over the center 70% of the field.

I also had the yardstick right at the left edge in all images, but only the 6.5mm HD-60 image clearly shows this.  What happens is if you look off axis by tilting your head to align the edge and field stop, you can actually see more field than by looking straight ahead and trying to do it using peripheral vision which is no where near acute enough for that job.  However, that is how the camera's lens sees the field, so the edge of the yardstick is not seen.

Edited June 14, 2019 by Louis D

[Louis D]

49 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Look forward to seeing what you have to say, I'm a bit like you were, often told beginners to buy them without ever having one. Your other set the Meade HD were very overpriced over here when they came out, so much so I moved onto TeleVue, I had the SWA range and most of the UWA range beforehand. HD 's here in Bulgaria were 200 e each, may even have bee 225e, so long back I forget now.

I picked up the 6 Meades with OEM case for $300 used and the 6 Paradigms without case or boxes for $240 used, so the Meades were only 25% more expensive on the secondary market, discounting the $20 case value.  New, the HD-60s cost $70 to $75 apiece or $400 for the set plus case.  The Paradigms are always $60 apiece.  Thus, the Meades are only only marginally more expensive here in the states.

The cheapest way to get a full set of the Paradigms is to order them as StarGuiders from our sponsor, FLO.  The full set of 7 eyepieces only costs roughly $300 shipped to the US.  There's no import duty for purchases under $800, Texas doesn't require sales tax to be collected on out of state purchases, and of course there's no VAT in the US, so that's the price I would pay.  Our local US retailers won't match that deal.

[vlaiv]

Yes, Starguiders at FLO are best priced as far as I know. They are quite cheap for the set if one counts in discount for multiple items.

I've seen the same line at TS marketed as TS ED 60 Flat Field. I wonder if there is any difference. I suspect that it is the same design, but wonder about QC and coatings since they are 50% more expensive.

Anyone ever came across comparison between different brands of these EPs?

[Louis D]

I doubt if there's any particular difference QC-wise.  Pretty much, if someone is willing to buy 300 units of each, they'll whip up a batch for you with whatever branding you want on them.  The only thing I've seen done differently from retailer to retailer is when APM/Lunt ordered their 100 degree WO/Myriad-type eyepieces with water proofing and a tapered top.

On a marginally related note, I once worked for a European company that would promise to buy 10,000 units of a special order item, and then cancel after the first 500 units were delivered because that was all they really needed.  They just wanted the deeper discounted price.  This really screwed over the supplier(s) who would be stuck with a bunch of special order items that they couldn't unload.  Eventually, no one in my company's home country would sell to them anymore, so they set up a shell company in the US to purchase under another name and then cross-import them back to their home country upon delivery to their US address.  Our US purchasing agent wouldn't play the home country's game because she didn't want her name dragged through the mud should she need to work elsewhere as a purchasing agent.  It turns out that US suppliers were generally much cheaper than European suppliers, so such games weren't really necessary.  Also, by bundling many small purchases into a single larger international shipment by Concordia, it was still pretty cheap to ship things twice.

[alan potts]

9 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Yes, Starguiders at FLO are best priced as far as I know. They are quite cheap for the set if one counts in discount for multiple items.

I've seen the same line at TS marketed as TS ED 60 Flat Field. I wonder if there is any difference. I suspect that it is the same design, but wonder about QC and coatings since they are 50% more expensive.

Anyone ever came across comparison between different brands of these EPs?

I've seen these Paradigm's dressed up a good few different ways going right back to when I restarted in 2009, I first saw the from a US company, Astro Tech or something very much like that, I bought a 40mm from them which in turn was the same as the SW Aero. I don't use my eyepieces very much at all now since venturing into the Astro Photography side, must say that seem rather a waste of 26 Televues, in fact I was thinking of getting rid of some now I have moved the LX 200 from the observatory and rarely use the Dob.

I feel though they are all going to much of a muchness, like so many and I have never seen anyone, like you, put them side by side.

Alan

[Louis D]

Spent some time looking at bright stars and the nearly full moon tonight with the AT72ED and the f/12 127 Mak.  Overall, the two lines more similar than different.

These are my observations in the field flattened 72ED that stuck with me:

1. The 25mm Paradigm falls apart much more quickly than the 25mm HD-60 as an object moves from center to edge.  Perhaps the central 50% is sharp compared to the central 70% to 75% in the HD-60.  The edge in the HD-60 is still usable while the Paradigm is all but unusable.
2. The 18mm HD-60 is quite similar to the 18mm Paradigm as far as sharpness and extent of sharpness, but the HD-60's much more generous eye relief makes it much more eyeglass friendly.
3. The 15mm Paradigm is quite similar to the 18mm in correction and magnification.  It seems a total waste to include it.  Including a 10mm instead of a 15mm or a 9mm and a 7mm instead of an 15mm and an 8mm would have made more sense as far as power progression.
4. The 12mm Paradigm and the 12mm HD-60 are both sharp out to about 80% or more to the edge.  However, both suffer from a bit field curvature requiring refocusing center to edge.  No other focal lengths in either line seemed to improve at the edge with refocusing.
5. The 9mm HD-60 suffers a bit of astigmatic unsharpness at the very edge, but it is hardly noticeable.
6. The 8mm Paradigm and 5mm Paradigm view very similarly.  Both are nearly perfect center to edge. 
7. The 6.5mm and 4.5mm HD-60s view very similarly as well.  Both are nearly perfect center to edge.
8. All the HD-60s have slightly indistinct field stops, with the 6.5mm and 9mm having the least sharp edge.
9. All of the Paradigms seem to have nice sharp field stops.
10. The 25mm Paradigm has very comfortable eye relief with eyeglasses.  The 12mm to 18mm Paradigms are tight but still usable.  However, the 5mm and 8mm Paradigms have super short eye relief that is just about unbearable with eyeglasses.
11. The 18mm and 25mm HD-60s are super comfy with eyeglasses.  The 9mm and 12mm are still comfy, but require being a bit closer.  The 4.5mm and 6.5mm require being in close contact with them to take in the whole field, but it is still easily doable.
12. Stray light seemed equally well controlled in both yielding similar contrast.
13. The 4.5mm to 6.5mm eyepieces were mostly showing false color on bright stars rather than white pinpoints due to pushing the limits of FPL-51 glass.

These are my recollection from using the 127 Mak:

1. All but the 15mm, 18mm, and 25mm versions sharpened up right to the edge.  The 15mm, 18mm, and 25mm versions did improve, but were still unsharp, but to a lesser extent, toward the edge.
2. Eye relief became tighter on all eyepieces for some reason.  The 5mm and 8mm Paradigms required chasing the view because my glasses could not be pushed any further into my eye sockets to compensate.
3. The 25mm versions gave the most pleasing views of the moon due to framing it nicely at a lower power.
4. The 4.5mm to 6.5mm eyepieces were mostly showing diffraction rings on bright stars rather than pinpoints due to the tiny exit pupils.
5. The 4.5mm to 12mm eyepieces were basically sharp center to edge.  Field curvature didn't appear to be much of an issue with either 12mm.
6. Field stops, stray light control, and contrast remained about the same as in the 72ED.

Overall, I'd have to give the nod to the HD-60s for eyeglasses wearers like myself.  If you don't need to wear eyeglasses, the win would seem to go to the Paradigms except at 25mm where the HD-60 is noticeably better.  It's unfortunate because it's the only eyeglass friendly Paradigm.  I would probably recommend skipping the 15mm Paradigm as redundant for most folks.

[pregulla]

41 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Eye relief became tighter on all eyepieces for some reason.

Makes sense. Diverging light cones increase eye relief. It will be longer in faster scope for the same reason it is longer when using barlow. In slower scope the cones are closer to parallel and eye relief will be shorter.

[vlaiv]

6 hours ago, alan potts said:

must say that seem rather a waste of 26 Televues, in fact I was thinking of getting rid of some now

I'll be happy to help if you considered donating them to a good cause

 

[John]

Interesting comparison Louis.

I've owned the 25, 18, 12, 8 and 5mm Paradigm eyepieces but I've not tried a Meade HD-60.

Based on others reports I was happy to recommend the Paradigms (usually branded as BSTs here) to others but having owned some myself made me even more confident that for their price they were indeed good buys and a significant step up from the stock eyepieces supplied with scopes.

It sounds as if the Meade HD-60s are good eyepieces as well so worthy of recommendation as well.

 

[joe1950]

OVery good info! I have a set of the Agena Starguider EDs which are exactly the same as the Paradigms and BSTs. Never had a chance to use the Meade HD-60s but from all I read, save for some minor differences, they are very comparable to the Paradigms.

I’ve been around the block a couple times with Paradigms and X-Cel LX, and have just decided it’s like a cat chasing its tail, so I’m staying with what I have! 

To my thinking, the offerings in this price range have very good quality in terms of sharpness, transparency, and control of reflections and scatter. They may not hold up perfectly from edge to edge as the very high end brands, but consider you can get 4 Paradigms for the price of one Delight. Not bashing TV, they are superb but just out of my range.

Good topic! Thanks.

 

Excellent presentation, Louis!

Edited June 25, 2019 by joe1950
Added

[nhyone]

On 15/06/2019 at 14:58, Louis D said:

The 18mm HD-60 is quite similar to the 18mm Paradigm as far as sharpness and extent of sharpness, but the HD-60's much more generous eye relief makes it much more eyeglass friendly.

Hi, you said 18mm HD-60 is similar to Paradigm, but you did not say how good/bad they are.

In past reviews, 18mm was by far the weakest in both lines. Do you feel so?

I'm surprised 15mm performs similarly to the 18mm. Does that means it isn't so good after all?

My takeaway from your review is, Paradigm is good, but it still loses to HD-60 when they go head-to-head. So, prefer to get HD-60 if price is not an issue.

I got the BST 8, 12 and 15mm for my Mak 127. This review doesn't change my mind. 😀

(I would still get the 15mm over the 18mm.)

I just got the 9 and 25mm X-Cel LX. Decided to skip the 6.5mm as it is a little too much mag (230x) for my scope [and I have several ~7mm EPs already!] and the 12mm, cos even if it is much better than the Paradigm, it is a little too low mag (125x) for its intended use (on planets).

Edited June 30, 2019 by nhyone

[Louis D]

38 minutes ago, nhyone said:

Hi, you said 18mm HD-60 is similar to Paradigm, but you did not say how good/bad they are.

In past reviews, 18mm was by far the weakest in both lines. Do you feel so?

I'm surprised 15mm performs similarly to the 18mm. Does that means it isn't so good after all?

My takeaway from your review is, Paradigm is good, but it still loses to HD-60 when they go head-to-head. So, prefer to get HD-60 if price is not an issue.

I got the BST 8, 12 and 15mm for my Mak 127. This review doesn't change my mind. 😀

(I would still get the 15mm over the 18mm.)

I just got the 9 and 25mm X-Cel LX. Decided to skip the 6.5mm as it is a little too much mag (230x) for my scope [and I have several ~7mm EPs already!] and the 12mm, cos even if it is much better than the Paradigm, it is a little too low mag (125x) for its intended use (on planets).

The weather hasn't been cooperative for me to get out again, so I'll have to hold off on making any critical assessments for now.

What I will say is that the 18mm HD-60 is pretty weak at the edges compared to the other HD-60s.  From my limited time with the 18mm Paradigm, it is similar, just wider AFOV and much less usable eye relief (7mm less).  I will have to compare them to my 17mm offerings (ES-92, NT4, and AF70) since I don't have any other 18mm eyepieces.  The AF70 is most comparable since it isn't all that well corrected at the edge, either, just 10 degrees wider AFOV.

Head to head, if you don't need the eye relief, the Paradigms have a nicer field stop and similar sharpness to the HD-60s.  They're just narrower in AFOV from 12mm on down.  At 25mm, I found the HD-60 definitely better than the Paradigm despite the latter being wider in AFOV and TFOV.  However, the HD-60 requires so much in-focus that I can't reach focus with it in my 8" Dob with the GSO coma corrector.  I have to take the latter out to reach focus, and then I'm left trying to sort out edge astigmatism from OTA coma.  I haven't tried the 25mm Paradigm in the Dob yet, but I think it reaches focus further out, so it might work just fine in the Dob.

I'll compare the 15mm Paradigm to some of my 14mm eyepieces (Pentax XL, Meade 4000 smoothie, Morpheus) to see how it compares.  The Pentax has significant field curvature, so it should be interesting to see which works better without refocusing.

[Louis D]

Just came back inside after spending four hours comparing the HD-60s to the Paradigms (BSTs) to other similar focal length eyepieces in my collection using my 8" f/6 Dob with a GSO coma corrector.  I observed a bright star, Jupiter, M22, and Saturn.  The coma corrector was removed for 10mm and below eyepieces because I was seeing false color unsharpness with it, probably due to residual spherical aberration.  Eyeglasses worn with all eyepieces due to strong astigmatism.

Here are my recollections:

1. The 25mm Paradigm has field curvature and astigmatism becoming apparent by 50% center to edge.  The 25mm HD-60 has no field curvature and much less intrusive astigmatism starting around 75% center to edge.  Both seemed equally sharp and contrasty in the center.  Eye relief is the same.  I had to remove the coma corrector to reach focus with the HD-60, and even then it was still sharper from 50% on out to the edge than the 25mm Paradigm.  Win goes to the HD-60.  The 24mm APM UFF is sharper center to edge than either, but has a less distinct field stop than either.  Tough call between the HD-60 and UFF, especially considering the price difference.  All three are worlds better than the 23mm Vite Aspheric which has astigmatism and sharpness issues.
2. The 18mm Paradigm also has field curvature and astigmatism, though not as strongly as the 25mm.  The 18mm HD-60 is has no field curvature and similar levels of astigmatism.  The win goes to the HD-60 due to much more generous eye relief and flatter field.  Both are significantly better than my 19mm Russell Konig which has loads of astigmatism starting at 30% center to edge.  My 17mm AstroTech AF70 was flat of field and had very little astigmatism, but it did have slight lateral color in the last 20% of the field.  I would probably recommend it over either the HD-60 or Paradigm, especially if it can be found used for a similar price to the HD-60 new.
3. The 15mm Paradigm is only marginally better than the 18mm in field flatness and astigmatism.  My 14mm Morpheus, Pentax XL, and Meade 4000 UWA smoothie all resoundingly trounced it.  I definitely recommend skipping the 15mm Paradigm.
4. The 12mm Paradigm and HD-60 are quite similar to each other.  Field curvature was not very strong this time around at this focal length.  Edge astigmatism is also quite minimal and non-intrusive.  Center sharpness was excellent in both revealing granulation in M22 as well as my 12mm ES-92 and Nagler T4.  However, both premium eyepieces held that granulation to the edge while the Paradigm and HD-60 became fuzzy due to astigmatism.  All four outperformed my 13mm AstroTech AF70 which has slight edge astigmatism and no field curvature, but has vast amounts of lateral color at the edge leading to very pretty rainbows instead of pinpoint stars.  Win goes to the 12mm HD-60 due to much more comfortable eye relief.
5. The 9mm HD-60 performed very similarly to my 9mm Morpheus and 10mm Delos.  The latter two had slightly better contrast, but sharpness was similar.
6. The 8mm Paradigm was slightly fuzzier across the field than the 9mm HD-60.  It wasn't much, but it was harder to get a sharp focus on the planets or M22.  Eye relief is getting tight with it.  The 5-8mm Speers Waler zoom had no issues at 8mm with sharpness.  Win goes to the 9mm HD-60.
7. The 6.5mm HD-60 is a gem.  It performed just about identically to my 7mm Pentax XW center to edge.  The Pentax was slightly sharper and contrastier, but the difference was subtle.
8. The 5mm Paradigm was a struggle use due to the tight eye relief.  I removed my eyeglasses and found the view about the same, just easier to take in.  I'm not 100% sure, but this eyepiece seems to have whole field brightening.  The sky background was noticeably brighter than in my 5.2mm Pentax XL or the SW zoom set to 5mm.  Sharpness seemed similar to the 4.5mm and 6.5mm HD-60s once best focus was found, but it is more difficult to find sharp focus, as was the case for the 8mm Paradigm.
9. The 4.5mm HD-60 is slightly less sharp than the 6.5mm HD-60 or 5mm Pentax XL, but not by much.  I put my 3.5mm Pentax XW in to check to see if it was seeing conditions, but the Pentax was nice and sharp, so it was the 4.5mm HD-60.  Still, it snapped to sharp focus much more authoritatively than the 5mm Paradigm and had slightly better eye relief.  Win goes to the 4.5mm HD-60.

Overall, I would steer clear of the 15mm, 18mm, and 25mm Paradigms if you can stretch to the 18mm and 25mm HD-60s.  The former just have too much field curvature and edge astigmatism to be overlooked by the discerning observer.

Either 12mm was quite nice, though the HD-60 has much better eye relief.

I would get the 4.5mm to 9mm HD-60s over the 5mm to 8mm Paradigms if budget allows or if you need to wear eyeglasses.  However, it is likely you can get by without them at these short focal lengths.  If cost is an issue, there isn't anything all that bad about the 5mm and 8mm Paradigms except for focus snap, eye relief, and background darkness.

Either line of eyepieces is a major improvement over older 60 degree designs like Konigs.  Eye relief at the short focal lengths is much better than with Plossls.  Overall, both are lines are a major improvement over the eyepieces typically packaged with starter scopes.  My recommendations above are simply to highlight the often subtle differences between the two lines for someone contemplating buying one over the other.