Ultima Edge eyepiece

[bosun21]

Are these Celestron eyepieces another copy of an existing eyepiece?. The Ultima Duo’s were apparently just repackaged Hyperion eyepieces. My understanding is that they are relatively new. Has anyone had any experience of these or of the eyepiece that they are repackaged from? Thanks 

[John]

I believe the Celestron Ultima Edge eyepieces are the same as the APM UFF eyepieces:

https://astrograph.net/epages/www_astrograph_net.sf/en_NZ/?ObjectPath=/Shops/www_astrograph_net/Products/AGAPMUFF30

I have not used them personally though.

[bosun21]

1 hour ago, John said:

I believe the Celestron Ultima Edge eyepieces are the same as the APM UFF eyepieces:

https://astrograph.net/epages/www_astrograph_net.sf/en_NZ/?ObjectPath=/Shops/www_astrograph_net/Products/AGAPMUFF30

I have not used them personally though.

Thanks for the heads up and I’ll look them up to see what they are like as I’ve never tried them 

[Andrew_B]

They're also sold under brand names such as Orion, Svbony, and Sky Rover, and are usually labelled as Ultra-Flat or Ultra-Flat Field with a FOV of 60 to 70 degrees depending on model.

[Zermelo]

I have the 10mm Celestron version, which I bought second hand. There doesn't seem to be much written about them that I could find.

I wanted something similar to a BST Starguider to fill the gap between the 8mm and 12mm in the Starguider range. It has the same 60° AFOV.

I've found it to perform at least as well as the Starguiders when used in my F5 Newtonian and F13ish Mak. On-axis sharpness has been very good in several observations of Jupiter, with low scatter and no ghosting. It's very comfortable to use; eye relief is generous and no kidney beaning. No noticeable glitches out to edges. It's also smaller and lighter than the Starguiders.
I like it, though I wouldn't pay £120 new for it.

[bosun21]

3 hours ago, Zermelo said:

I have the 10mm Celestron version, which I bought second hand. There doesn't seem to be much written about them that I could find.

I wanted something similar to a BST Starguider to fill the gap between the 8mm and 12mm in the Starguider range. It has the same 60° AFOV.

I've found it to perform at least as well as the Starguiders when used in my F5 Newtonian and F13ish Mak. On-axis sharpness has been very good in several observations of Jupiter, with low scatter and no ghosting. It's very comfortable to use; eye relief is generous and no kidney beaning. No noticeable glitches out to edges. It's also smaller and lighter than the Starguiders.
I like it, though I wouldn't pay £120 new for it.

Thanks for your feedback on your experience using the eyepiece. I’ll pass on them as for the price they are asking for them in some of the sizes i could buy three BST’s

[Andrew_B]

6 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Thanks for your feedback on your experience using the eyepiece. I’ll pass on them as for the price they are asking for them in some of the sizes i could buy three BST’s

The generic versions are quite a bit cheaper at around 45 quid for the 10mm and around 70 quid for the 15mm and 18mm, although I've seen a lot of different prices for the same things so it's worth doing a bit of bargain hunting.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Andrew_B

[bosun21]

1 minute ago, Andrew_B said:

The Svbony version can be had for about 45 quid.

Which SVbony eyepiece?

[Andrew_B]

10 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Which SVbony eyepiece?

Sorry, should have put a bit more info in there. The 10mm is the one I've seen at that price and the 15mm and 18mm I've seen going for around £65-70.

They sell them on places like eBay and Aliexpress - if you're buying from the latter make sure to check delivery times because some of the real bargains are obviously sent over on the slow boat so you could be waiting a while!

[Zermelo]

This one? £44.99

This is what CN has to say:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/781526-are-these-eyepieces-clonescopies/

[bosun21]

7 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

This one? £44.99

This is what CN has to say:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/781526-are-these-eyepieces-clonescopies/

Thanks for that. It was very enlightening, if somewhat political. It just shows what sort of mark up companies put on the equipment. I may dip my toes in and buy a 10mm. I don’t see the 18mm anywhere 

[bomberbaz]

2 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Thanks for that. It was very enlightening, if somewhat political. It just shows what sort of mark up companies put on the equipment. I may dip my toes in and buy a 10mm. I don’t see the 18mm anywhere 

try this

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002314488490.html?spm=2114.12057483.detail.3.c5ab407634Vnhm

[bomberbaz]

Regarding the celestrons, unless they are using glass of some new amazing quality, then imho they are well over priced. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-ultima-edge-eyepieces.html

They are also copies of the APM UFF range, I own the 24mm and it is a lovely eyepiece to use and much less expensive although stock is the current issue but ain't that the case everywhere? https://www.widescreen-centre.co.uk/apm-ultra-flat-field-eyepieces-65.html

FWIW if I were in the market for eyepieces in this area and FOV wasn't a huge consideration then the APM would be in my shortlist. 

I would like to see a comparison between the svbony version against the APM. That result would be interesting.

[Zermelo]

Yes, you expect some degree of premium for a familiar brand name, but that difference seems to be greater than most, if they really are identical. At that price, the 10mm would be a good buy I think.

[Andrew_B]

45 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

This one? £44.99

This is what CN has to say:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/781526-are-these-eyepieces-clonescopies/

That's the one I saw.

Normal caveats apply if you're thinking of buying from an overseas supplier. Make sure to check what guarantee is in place and also consider whether it's practical to return an item if there was a problem given the cost of sending it back.

On the whole I've found buying from the Far East to be fairly problem-free and the customer service has generally been first rate.

[Andrew_B]

38 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

try this

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002314488490.html?spm=2114.12057483.detail.3.c5ab407634Vnhm

Svbony also sell direct https://www.svbony.com/sv190-ultra-flat-field-18mm-eyepiece/ although there are some Svbony branded items I've seen elsewhere that they don't currently offer on their own website.

[bosun21]

27 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Regarding the celestrons, unless they are using glass of some new amazing quality, then imho they are well over priced. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-eyepieces/celestron-ultima-edge-eyepieces.html

They are also copies of the APM UFF range, I own the 24mm and it is a lovely eyepiece to use and much less expensive although stock is the current issue but ain't that the case everywhere? https://www.widescreen-centre.co.uk/apm-ultra-flat-field-eyepieces-65.html

FWIW if I were in the market for eyepieces in this area and FOV wasn't a huge consideration then the APM would be in my shortlist. 

I would like to see a comparison between the svbony version against the APM. That result would be interesting.

According to the thread on CN they are in fact optically identical. However as you say, it would be great to put this to the test 

[Zermelo]

 

[bomberbaz]

32 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

According to the thread on CN they are in fact optically identical. However as you say, it would be great to put this to the test 

Somebody made a good point on the CN thread about buying from the reduced cost suppliers who are simply copying the designs of others then under cutting them.

The designers, in this case APM have spent a lot of cash producing this line and need to have a higher price to recoup that cost and then hopefully use some of that profit to design new glass.

Svbony for all their quality are apparently copying others designs and although their quality and after service is good, should we really be supporting this plagiarism at the expense of innovators?

Maybe this should be a separate thread!

[bosun21]

15 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Somebody made a good point on the CN thread about buying from the reduced cost suppliers who are simply copying the designs of others then under cutting them.

The designers, in this case APM have spent a lot of cash producing this line and need to have a higher price to recoup that cost and then hopefully use some of that profit to design new glass.

Svbony for all their quality are apparently copying others designs and although their quality and after service is good, should we really be supporting this plagiarism at the expense of innovators?

Maybe this should be a separate thread!

Whilst I wholeheartedly disagree about copying other designs SVbony are not actually copying anything. They are simply buying the eyepieces from the factory of manufacture, who sells them to anyone with enough money. Whilst I sympathize with APM I cant help wonder why they didn’t license or patent their design 

[Andrew_B]

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

Somebody made a good point on the CN thread about buying from the reduced cost suppliers who are simply copying the designs of others then under cutting them.

The designers, in this case APM have spent a lot of cash producing this line and need to have a higher price to recoup that cost and then hopefully use some of that profit to design new glass.

Svbony for all their quality are apparently copying others designs and although their quality and after service is good, should we really be supporting this plagiarism at the expense of innovators?

Maybe this should be a separate thread!

If Svbony are copying APM then so are Celestron, Orion, Tecnosky, Altair Astro, and probably a few others. They're not knockoffs or copies because they're coming out of the same factory and are optically identical although external cosmetic appearance may differ. It would be interesting to know whether Marcus bought in a set of off the shelf eyepiece designs to sell as the APM UFF range or whether they were his own design (I'm sure I read that he reverse engineered someone else's design but I may be mistaken) and he didn't sign an exclusivity agreement in order to secure a lower price from the factory.

You see this with astro gear all the time with the same product being sold under a variety of names but there's nothing underhand going on or anybody getting ripped off. FLO fo example have their in-house Astro Essentials, StellaMira, and StellaLyra brands which feature products that are the same as those offered by name brands but cost a lot less (Astro Essentials Plössls are the same as Celestron Omni Plössls but at half the price). 

The only thing buyers need to be careful of is when buying from anywhere overseas they may have less protection than they would under UK consumer law, and even if a vendor is happy to repair, replace, or refund faulty products you can still incur significant costs if you send items back. You may also find that help and support is far less forthcoming than it would be from a UK seller which should be borne in mind when thinking about the potential to save money.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Andrew_B

[bosun21]

20 minutes ago, Andrew_B said:

If Svbony are copying APM then so are Celestron, Orion, Tecnosky, Altair Astro, and probably a few others. They're not knockoffs or copies because they're coming out of the same factory and are optically identical although external cosmetic appearance may differ. It would be interesting to know whether Marcus bought in a set of off the shelf eyepiece designs to sell as the APM UFF range or whether they were his own design (I'm sure I read that he reverse engineered someone else's design but I may be mistaken) and he didn't sign an exclusivity agreement in order to secure a lower price from the factory.

You see this with astro gear all the time with the same product being sold under a variety of names but there's nothing underhand going on or anybody getting ripped off. FLO fo example have their in-house Astro Essentials, StellaMira, and StellaLyra brands which feature products that are the same as those offered by name brands but cost a lot less (Astro Essentials Plössls are the same as Celestron Omni Plössls but at half the price). 

The only thing buyers need to be careful of is when buying from anywhere overseas they may have less protection than they would under UK consumer law, and even if a vendor is happy to repair, replace, or refund faulty products you can still incur significant costs if you send items back. You may also find that help and support is far less forthcoming than it would be from a UK seller which should be borne in mind when thinking about the potential to save money.

Thanks for that Andrew, and I think that answers all the questions and doubts that may arise when shopping for these and other optically duplicated eyepieces 

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, Andrew_B said:

It would be interesting to know whether Marcus bought in a set of off the shelf eyepiece designs to sell as the APM UFF range or whether they were his own design (I'm sure I read that he reverse engineered someone else's design but I may be mistaken) and he didn't sign an exclusivity agreement in order to secure a lower price from the factory.

According to this CN post, Mark Ackermann of the US designed the 30mm (and I believe the rest of the APM UFF line) at Markus's request.

[Andrew_B]

5 hours ago, Louis D said:

According to this CN post, Mark Ackermann of the US designed the 30mm (and I believe the rest of the APM UFF line) at Markus's request.

Thanks for the info. I read that APM had the exclusive rights for two years then KunMing United Optics were free to manufacture the same design for other brands.

Brands currently offering some or all of the range (10mm, 15mm, 18mm, 24mm, 30mm) are Altair, APM, Celestron, Meade, Orion, Svbony, Sky Rover, and Tecnosky.

[bomberbaz]

1 hour ago, Andrew_B said:

Thanks for the info. I read that APM had the exclusive rights for two years then KunMing United Optics were free to manufacture the same design for other brands.

Brands currently offering some or all of the range (10mm, 15mm, 18mm, 24mm, 30mm) are Altair, APM, Celestron, Meade, Orion, Svbony, Sky Rover, and Tecnosky.

I stand corrected and apologise for my wrong assumptions. I would have thought there is some illicit copying going on but obviously not as widespread as I may have presumed.