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NEW StellaLyra SuperView eyepieces


FLO

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12 minutes ago, Lockie said:

I'm also intrigued by the 50mm. It would give 32x and a 6mm exit pupil with the Stella Lyra 8RC. I will need to buy the Stella Lyra 2" diagonal first of course as I only have a WO 1.25" :) 

I've got the StellaMira 2" diagonal in my StellaMira 80mm... it's a very good diagonal, easily as good as the WO 2" it replaced 👍

Edited by HollyHound
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9 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

I've got the StellaMira 2" diagonal in my StellaMira 80mm... it's a very good diagonal, easily as good as the WO 2" it replaced 👍

That's good to hear, thanks :) I was wondering if they were possibly made in the same factory?

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5 minutes ago, Lockie said:

That's good to hear, thanks :) I was wondering if they were possibly made in the same factory?

The StellaMira 1.25" di-electric looks identical to the Skywatcher 1.25" di-electric, and the StellaMira 2" just looks like a larger version of these... no obvious manufacturing traits/styling similar to the WO, but can never be certain with these as there are only so many manufacturers... maybe @FLO would know 🤔

Edited by HollyHound
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1 hour ago, Matt01 said:

Bought the 30mm for my Bresser Dob. 

I presume it's not too close to the 35mm limit of an f/5?

Also a very nice looking eyepiece

Had a similar thought, but I've already got the Aero 35mm and Panoptic 24mm, both of which worked well in brief testing last week (come on clear skies🤞), so wasn't sure if the 30mm (or 42mm) would add anything for me.... interested to hear how well the 30mm works in your Dob👍

Edited by HollyHound
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If I'm not mistaken, these SuperView eyepieces are not well suited to faster scopes. They will be fine at F/10 and above, but at F/6, well, I'm not sure.

Also from what I've seen - saying that 42mm has 65° apparent field of view is rather big overstatement. It is probably closer to 57-58° and field stop is around 41.5mm or there about.

That is why I asked FLO to confirm actual field stop diameters. Should not be too hard - a quick check with ruler will do.

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I've owned the 50mm and 42mm GSO branded versions of these eyepieces and can confirm what vlaiv has said above regarding performance and specs. The Stellalyra ones do look extremely like the GSO Superviews.

I enjoyed them in an F/10 refractor and SCT.

I strongly suspect that the Revelation Superview's are the same eyepieces ?

 

Edited by John
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25 minutes ago, John said:

I've owned the 50mm and 42mm GSO branded versions of these eyepieces and can confirm what vlaiv has said above regarding performance and specs. The Stellalyra ones do look extremely like the GSO Superviews.

I enjoyed them in an F/10 refractor and SCT.

I strongly suspect that the Revelation Superview's are the same eyepieces ?

 

Yes John, that's what I thought.  I have the 42 and 30mm versions.  The FOV of the 42 is less than stated.  Otherwise, they are nice, light, good value 2" EPs.  I sold the 50mm on - smaller mag, similar FOV, exit pupil generally too large.

Doug.

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@vlaiv @John  As you know, these GSO manufactured eyepieces have been on the market for many years in one form or another. But they are new to FLO. We added them to our website only yesterday so if either of you notice any specifications that need correcting please let me know 🙂 

Steve 

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15 hours ago, HollyHound said:

The StellaMira 1.25" di-electric looks identical to the Skywatcher 1.25" di-electric, and the StellaMira 2" just looks like a larger version of these... no obvious manufacturing traits/styling similar to the WO, but can never be certain with these as there are only so many manufacturers... maybe @FLO would know 🤔

At FLO when announcing StellaMira or StellaLyra products we always share who manufactures them. The information is available here and on our website 🙂 

I think it highly likely other major brands source from the same factories but they don't share that information so I cannot confirm. 

HTH, 

Steve 

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7 minutes ago, FLO said:

@vlaiv @John  As you know, these GSO manufactured eyepieces have been on the market for many years in one form or another. But they are new to FLO. We added them to our website only yesterday so if either of you notice any specifications that need correcting please let me know 🙂 

Steve 

I think that you should revisit this:

image.png.5826631a018b196d894b44b99bf5cea8.png

It suggests that these eyepieces are fine to be used with F/6 8" Newtonian, but in reality you might want to emphasize that they are best used with slower scopes at F/10 or slower - very suitable for StellaLyra range of telescopes and StellaMira 80mm F/10  model (but not other two).

Also, if you measure field stop, you'll get better idea of actual field of view of eyepieces and you'll find that 50mm does not have larger TFOV than 42mm (according to what I've read) and that 42mm has less than 60° in reality and not 65°.

In fact, TS 42mm version (with photo thread) is marketed as 60° :

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p1433_TS-Optics-42-mm-2--Wide-Angle-Eyepiece-with-thread-connection-for-cameras.html

image.png.fba3216560a84885ef2e61c368af4d1e.png

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20 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

... you might want to emphasize that they are best used with slower scopes at F/10 or slower 

Done 🙂 

"For best performance use with telescopes with focal-ratios f10 or slower." 

Measuring field stops and updating the FOV charts will take longer but will be done. 

Thank-you for the info. 

Steve 

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1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

 

Also, if you measure field stop, you'll get better idea of actual field of view of eyepieces and you'll find that 50mm does not have larger TFOV than 42mm (according to what I've read) and that 42mm has less than 60° in reality and not 65°.

Does this mean that there is no real advantage to the choosing the 50mm over the 42mm, other than perhaps brightness ?

Sounds similar to the 40mm vs 32mm in the 1.25” eyepiece size. I have a 40mm and it does give me a slightly brighter image compared to a 32mm, but no real increase in FoV.

Cheers

Gary

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14 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Does this mean that there is no real advantage to the choosing the 50mm over the 42mm, other than perhaps brightness ?

Sounds similar to the 40mm vs 32mm in the 1.25” eyepiece size. I have a 40mm and it does give me a slightly brighter image compared to a 32mm, but no real increase in FoV.

Cheers

Gary

At least according to what I've read.

Apparently 42mm has field stop of about 41.5mm, so situation is not quite like 40mm vs 32mm in 1.25" as those two are limited by max field stop in 1.25" format which is around 27mm.

In 2" format, max field stop is around 47mm, so there should be room for larger field of view, but it looks like 50mm also has field stop at about 41mm - according to some reports - even a bit smaller than 42mm!

For example, check this discussion:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/466082-gso-superview-42mm-actual-afov/

I also ran cross this resource:

https://eyepieceplanner.com/#/

which gives:

image.thumb.png.fa34781d39eeabb7e3695ba0e9c83858.png

Red asterisk means that values are calculated and not measured - apparently, measured value here is field of view - probably by some sort of timing method (star drift for example). It says that 50mm has only 48° AFOV and 42mm has 58° AFOV. This makes 50mm one show less sky than 42mm.

50mm offers longer focal length and larger exit pupil. In slow scope that can sometimes be beneficial. In fast scope - you'll soon have larger exit pupil than is recommended and there is really no point in using 50mm vs 42mm as result will be virtually the same.

If you are after max true field of view - then you should really look for eyepieces with 46-47mm of field stop. There are few models that deliver that, but they are not cheap. Probably most affordable one is this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/panaview-2-eyepieces.html

But again, that is not for fast scopes. There was another good eyepiece that was affordable and had large field stop but it seems to be out of production now:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/aero-ed-swa-2-eyepieces.html

40mm model. I've read that these work well even in faster scopes. Pity it is no longer made (at least no one seems to have it in stock for quite a long time now).

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I find using more magnification rather than less more effective from where I observe. 31 mm is now my longest focal length eyepiece. Until recently I had a nice 40mm 68 degree but almost always got more satisfying views with short focal lengths. I've owned a few 50mm eyepieces but never for very long :wink:

These GSO made super wide eyepieces are fine as long as the buyer is aware of their limitations. Their pricing needs to reflect this as well IMHO.

vlaiv has made some excellent points regarding them so I don't need to add any more :smiley:

Edited by John
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49 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Does this mean that there is no real advantage to the choosing the 50mm over the 42mm, other than perhaps brightness ?

Sounds similar to the 40mm vs 32mm in the 1.25” eyepiece size. I have a 40mm and it does give me a slightly brighter image compared to a 32mm, but no real increase in FoV.

Cheers

Gary

When you get to long FLs (approaching the 50mm mark) the brightness does not necessarily increase (unless with very dark skies) because with a large exit pupil, the background sky also brightens resulting is poorer contrast.

That's why I (like @John) didn't hang on to my 50mm!

Doug.

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52 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

50mm offers longer focal length and larger exit pupil. In slow scope that can sometimes be beneficial. In fast scope - you'll soon have larger exit pupil than is recommended and there is really no point in using 50mm vs 42mm as result will be virtually the same.

If you are after max true field of view - then you should really look for eyepieces with 46-47mm of field stop. There are few models that deliver that, but they are not cheap. Probably most affordable one is this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/panaview-2-eyepieces.html

But again, that is not for fast scopes. There was another good eyepiece that was affordable and had large field stop but it seems to be out of production now:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ovl-eyepieces/aero-ed-swa-2-eyepieces.html

40mm model. I've read that these work well even in faster scopes. Pity it is no longer made (at least no one seems to have it in stock for quite a long time now).

Ok thank you for the explanation 😃

Given I've ordered the 50mm specifically for my StellaMira 80mm f/10, I'm probably going to be fine. When I started, I used to have both a 32mm and 40mm Celestron Plossl, but got rid of the 32mm as I found that in my Mak, I much preferred the brighter view from the 40mm, even though there was no increase in field of view. I suspect that the 50mm vs 42mm would be the same, I would have 16x mag and 5mm of exit pupil from the 50mm, which is likely the theoretical max for my age anyway and the skies around here are reasonably dark (Bortle 5, sometimes 4).

I've got an Aero ED 35mm already, which works nicely in the StellaMira and is "ok" in the 10" dob (very brief test last Thursday night, been cloudy since!). I've also had both the 38mm and 32mm PanaView for a few months, which were lovely eyepieces, but very heavy and I found balance issues when using them on the StellaMira on the ScopeTech, so sold them and now just have the Aero ED 35mm (which is much lighter) and the Panoptic 24mm (love this eyepiece). Hopefully the StellaLyra 50mm is also light enough to work without (too much) rebalancing either🤞

I'm really just looking for an eyepiece that "sort of" reproduces the view/brightness I get when using my Pentax 20x60mm (3mm exit pupil) or Nikon Monarch 8x56 (7mm exit pupil) binoculars, for just general scanning of the sky, as I find that handholding the Pentax isn't very effective for me anymore... in fact they are likely going up for sale quite soon 🤔

Thanks all

Gary

Edited by HollyHound
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28 minutes ago, cloudsweeper said:

When you get to long FLs (approaching the 50mm mark) the brightness does not necessarily increase (unless with very dark skies) because with a large exit pupil, the background sky also brightens resulting is poorer contrast.

That's why I (like @John) didn't hang on to my 50mm!

Doug.

Yes, even with reasonably dark skies, I get that with my Nikon Monarch 8x56, which has a 7mm exit pupil... the sky can become a bit "washed out". However, the advantage for me with those binoculars, is that you get a really "relaxed" view, difficult to describe but it just seems so easy to view with them... I guess it's the really large exit pupil. They are great for just scanning the sky and so I'm hoping the 50mm in the StellaMira does a similar job, but of course steady (being mounted) 🤞

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56 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

40mm model. I've read that these work well even in faster scopes. Pity it is no longer made (at least no one seems to have it in stock for quite a long time now).

Yes, I've been looking for this one for ages too, but as you say, no one has them in stock anywhere 🙁

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