StellaLyra 68° / 80° EPs

[Pixies]

@cajen2 - bring 'em all down to Astro Camp and I'll help provide an unbiased second opinion!

 

[cajen2]

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

@cajen2 - bring 'em all down to Astro Camp and I'll help provide an unbiased second opinion!

 

Will do, Neil! 😄👍

[Don Pensack]

I have not tried, nor seen the 68° eyepieces from Long Perng.

 

And my experience with the 80° is only with the 14mm.  I think Richard (25585) in the UK has used the 20mm as well, which he speaks of highly.

My purpose for getting the 14mm was to find out if it is compatible with glasses.  It is advertised as having 20mm of eye relief, and I believe it does.

However, it has only about 12mm eye relief from the top of the eyecup, which cannot be folded down, and I could not see the whole field with glasses on.

When I removed the eyecup (which just threads off) and replaced it with a rubber eyecup that was only 1/2mm above the aluminum top of the eyepiece, the eye relief was more than adequate for glasses.

Of course, if used without glasses, it would have more than long enough eye relief.

 

It is very sharp and has excellent contrast and color rendition.  However, my 14mm had edge of field brightening in the outer 5-10° of field.

Since that shows up on hazy nights in nearly all eyepieces, I compared it with a 14mm Morpheus, which I knew, from experience, had none.

And, that night, the Morpheus still had none.

So I concluded the Long Perng eyepiece had two flaws--one fixable, one not.

The mfr admitted they knew about the brightening issue but were working on a correction.  They did not mention what that was.

I would add that it is fairly mild and might be tolerated by many observers.

You can see my post on Tuesday above to see a link to what I think might be the reason.

The eyepiece is very sharp and should be a good eyepiece for any scope.  It worked fine in a friend's f/3.45, so it is well-corrected.

 

P.S. due to current VAT rules, I do not sell to the UK, so I do not compete with FLO.

If I lived in the UK, I would probably buy from them.  Many posts on this board show they are a reputable company to deal with.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2022 by Don Pensack

[FLO]

@Don Pensack I have seen what you do at Cloudy Nights but that isn't how we do things at SGL. As retailers you and I are not unbiased. 

Consider APM - a brand you stock that we do not. You often insert APM into eyepiece discussions. But no eyepiece is perfect. You and I can find weakness in 'any' eyepiece design (telescopes too). So, if I were to join conversations about APM eyepieces and hi-light a "flaw" while mentioning a brand we stock... How is this good?  

In this instance you literally hi-lighted an imperfection in a product that competes with those you sell. See the difference in lighting and exposure between your photos posted at Cloudy Nights. 

I see your conversation there continued for some time while people attempted to find the same aberration in their own eyepieces. Some could, some could not. The conversation ended with a member who owned the same eyepiece saying he could not see the problem. For him, it was a non-issue. 

At FLO we stock and support StellaLyra eyepieces manufactured by Long Perng. I have selected a number for my own use (with a 10" Dobsonian). Over time if I or anyone else notices something that requires attention (i.e. if we find the eyecup consumes a few mm of eye-relief) then we will update our product pages and specification. 

Steve 

[cajen2]

I did ask Don whether the EOFB was apparent in everyone's EP (post #6). There was no answer......

 

Edited March 4, 2022 by cajen2

[FLO]

He is based in LA, USA so his time zone is eight hours behind ours. 

If EOFB is visible in a design then it is unlikely it would be same for all focal lengths. Telescope design and brightness of target observed will also likely affect whether it is visible. And aberrations visible in daylight are not always apparent when observing the night sky. 

[cajen2]

The question was posed on Wednesday!

By his own admission, he's not familiar with the 68° range anyway.

[Ricochet]

I think it would be a good idea to get these eyepieces sent out to a few reputable members for testing/review. When the 80° range first appeared under the Orion branding I had a gap in my eyepiece collection for a 20mm, but a lack of reviews stopped me from buying one. Other people might now be in that same position that I was in with either of these new ranges. The 68° range sit in the price range that the Morpheus used to be in when it was the defacto upgrade from a Starguider. The 68°s might also make nice bino pairs if they are physically small enough.

[Louis D]

Okay, I did so sleuthing on the Levenhuk Ra version of the 68° Long Perng LER eyepieces.  I came up with the following:

Review of 14.5mm on CN

Ernest in Russia's testing/review of the entire line.

Both seem to agree that the 12mm and 14.5mm were the standout performers of the line.

They were also sold as the Omegon Super LE and Altair Astro Lightwave Premium LER.

[cajen2]

3 hours ago, Ricochet said:

I think it would be a good idea to get these eyepieces sent out to a few reputable members for testing/review. When the 80° range first appeared under the Orion branding I had a gap in my eyepiece collection for a 20mm, but a lack of reviews stopped me from buying one. Other people might now be in that same position that I was in with either of these new ranges. The 68° range sit in the price range that the Morpheus used to be in when it was the defacto upgrade from a Starguider. The 68°s might also make nice bino pairs if they are physically small enough.

I hope you're not suggesting that I'm not a 'reputable member'! 😡

[Ricochet]

17 hours ago, Louis D said:

Okay, I did so sleuthing on the Levenhuk Ra version of the 68° Long Perng LER eyepieces.  I came up with the following:

Review of 14.5mm on CN

Ernest in Russia's testing/review of the entire line.

Both seem to agree that the 12mm and 14.5mm were the standout performers of the line.

They were also sold as the Omegon Super LE and Altair Astro Lightwave Premium LER.

Thanks, Louis. Ernest's observations are always worth paying attention to. It's a shame that the two good focal lengths are so close that most people would only want one of the pair.

17 hours ago, cajen2 said:

I hope you're not suggesting that I'm not a 'reputable member'! 😡

Sorry, Cajen2, I shall never imply such a thing again. 🤣

[Don Pensack]

On 04/03/2022 at 04:21, FLO said:

@Don Pensack I have seen what you do at Cloudy Nights but that isn't how we do things at SGL. As retailers you and I are not unbiased. 

Consider APM - a brand you stock that we do not. You often insert APM into eyepiece discussions. But no eyepiece is perfect. You and I can find weakness in 'any' eyepiece design (telescopes too). So, if I were to join conversations about APM eyepieces and hi-light a "flaw" while mentioning a brand we stock... How is this good?  

In this instance you literally hi-lighted an imperfection in a product that competes with those you sell. See the difference in lighting and exposure between your photos posted at Cloudy Nights. 

I see your conversation there continued for some time while people attempted to find the same aberration in their own eyepieces. Some could, some could not. The conversation ended with a member who owned the same eyepiece saying he could not see the problem. For him, it was a non-issue. 

At FLO we stock and support StellaLyra eyepieces manufactured by Long Perng. I have selected a number for my own use (with a 10" Dobsonian). Over time if I or anyone else notices something that requires attention (i.e. if we find the eyecup consumes a few mm of eye-relief) then we will update our product pages and specification. 

Steve 

Steve,

First and foremost, I'm an observer.  Those two 14mm eyepieces were ones I was unfamiliar with, and I was looking only for myself for an eyepiece of that focal length I could use with glasses.

Frankly, I do not post about eyepieces with sales in mind.  I obtained one of the LongPerng 14mm as a test eyepiece, along with several others (Delos, Nikon SW, Pentax XW, which I found all too narrow for my taste), at my own expense, and not just from my stock.

A couple of the other 14mm I used, I was already familiar with.  These two eyepieces had nearly identical eye reliefs and apparent fields, so I was interested to see what differences between them I could see.

I only reported what I saw.

My comments do not and cannot apply to other brands or other focal lengths of the eyepieces in question, and I did not state or imply that they did.

And you are 100% correct: look closely and there is a flaw in every eyepiece made.  There is no perfect eyepiece.  I even reported on a couple flaws I noticed in the TeleVue Apollo once I bought one of those for my own use and had a chance to use it.

I wish you every success in your endeavors, and long enjoyable nights under the stars.  You do the astronomy hobbyists a great service to support SGL.

 

[Guest]

On 02/03/2022 at 11:57, FLO said:

I see you purchased the StellaLyra 18mm 1.25" 68º eyepiece.

If you are willing then we will happily loan you a StellaLyra 20mm 2" 80º for comparison. I am interested to hear how they compare in your Dobsonian telescope. 

Take your time, we'll contact you in a month or two to see how things are progressing then will send a courier to collect the eyepiece when you are finished. No pressure 🙂 

Steve

 

If you want to send one to the US I would be happy to test them lol

[bomberbaz]

Interesting thread this and I could be interested in a 6mm 80 degree one. Would have been useful the other week when hunting quasars.

However if @FLO still has capacity for more EP testing, the 9mm would be a good option for my dob.

I have a Nikon Nav HW 12.5 - 10mm and a TV Delos 8mm which would give a favourable comparison. Nikon x 170, Stella x189 & TV x213. I could also use the hyperflex 9-27 zoom to see what budget priced glass gives.

[cajen2]

Yes, I'd be interested in the results of such a test, @bomberbaz. What holds true for a 20mm 2" EP might be quite different from a 6 or 9mm 1.25".

If @FLO wants to send me one for testing again, I'd be happy to give it a go.

Edited April 13, 2022 by cajen2

[Louis D]

The AT AF70 (Omegon Redline SW) have an excellent 22mm, an okay 17mm, an iffy 13mm, and reportedly (I haven't tried these personally) mediocre 8mm and 5mm versions.  Thus, you can't extrapolate eyepiece performance across an entire line based on the performance of one of them.  That's why I pick and choose the best eyepieces from different eyepiece lines.

[bomberbaz]

5 hours ago, cajen2 said:

Yes, I'd be interested in the results of such a test, @bomberbaz. What holds true for a 20mm 2" EP might be quite different from a 6 or 9mm 1.25".

If @FLO wants to send me one for testing again, I'd be happy to give it a go.

Yes I am aware of the discrepancy between different focal length eyepieces over the same range. I remember years back owning the celestron xcel range and the 25mm I think was by far the best of the range.

My reason for offering to give the 9mm a whirl is I have a good selection of other decent glass at or around that size.

The 6mm would be a great eyepiece for extra high powered viewing of such things as quasars, super tight doubles, planetary nebs etc. My dob has DSC fitted which is incredibly accurate and makes using really high power so very much easier which is why I was thinking it a possible worthwhile acquisition. 

[cajen2]

I have the world's most disparate EP collection, including two Pentaxes, two StellaLyras,  a Morpheus, a BST, a Vixen and a Svbony, plus an OVL zoom, so not short of comparisons....😆

[Louis D]

46 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

I have the world's most disparate EP collection, including two Pentaxes, two StellaLyras,  a Morpheus, a BST, a Vixen and a Svbony, plus an OVL zoom, so not short of comparisons....😆

Did someone say world's most disparate EP collection?  Let's see, there's Tele Vue, Pentax, Vixen, Meade, ES, Baader, Astro Tech, APM, Edmunds, Rini, Russell Optics, Antares, Celestron, Surplus Shed, US military surplus, Orion, Agena Astro, Bausch & Lomb, and no name generics in my EP collection.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Louis D

[bomberbaz]

I'm not getting my collection out, will take too long to put them back and my OCD will be trying to make me put them back in  a more organised way, lol  🤣

[Louis D]

6 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

I'm not getting my collection out, will take too long to put them back and my OCD will be trying to make me put them back in  a more organised way, lol  🤣

I hear you.  I had a panic attack getting everything out for that group shot.  I literally took photos of each case ahead of time to help me get everything back where it belonged.  Even then, I realized some reorganization was in order; so a couple of eyepiece swaps happened.

[cajen2]

2 hours ago, Louis D said:

Did someone say world's most disparate EP collection?  Let's see, there's Tele Vue, Pentax, Vixen, Meade, ES, Baader, Astro Tech, APM, Edmunds, Rini, Russell Optics, Antares, Celestron, Surplus Shed, US military surplus, Orion, Agena Astro, Bausch & Lomb, and no name generics in my EP collection.

Ok, ok, you win!

I phrased it badly; I meant that for the number of EPs I have, there are a lot of different manufacturers.

Edited April 13, 2022 by cajen2