Top notch new eyepieces up to £150.

[Naughty Neal]

A thread where all can place their top buys in one place , one could include used ep's but that defeats the object so lets keep this one to brand new ep's. I took the Q as Michael aka Mr Spock alluded to the title and sounded reasonable for those who are on a tighter budget.
  

My SV 18mm  UFF branded ep was a delight to look through last evening ,  it brought the night sky alive with pin sharp bright vista's to the edge  in my f12.5 scopetech 80mm acro it gave 55x mag, now looking forward to giving it an outing in my f11.2 ed 102 Ascent .  Typically about £109 though my one was  had for a bargain new price of £51.66.  The uff is sold under a range of other branded names and celestron ultima edge is one as well as stellalyra UFF.  UF or UFF typically they are sold as,  the range consists of 10, 15, 18 & 24mm in 1.25" form for sub £150 with 60 - 65 degree fov.  The other ep  is a 2" 30mm ep and world class but over the price range of the thread. 

 

Sv 215 zoom an absolute little gem of an eyepiece, superb value at under £130 typically offered at.  But even so much better when on offer  with 50% off,  it is a no brainer to buy at that price on a Black Friday or xmas offer price.

 

Edited February 13 by Naughty Neal

[SuburbanMak]

Baader Classic Orthos - now £54 each I believe and the 18mm & 10mm are as sharp and flat as I've seen, narrower field at 45 degree yes but stunning fidelity for the price. The 6mm is tight on eye relief but equally good if you are ok with getting up close and don't wear spec's to observe. The 18mm is my favourite eyepiece and always finds itself slipping into a pocket as I am heading out  

SVBony 3-8mm Zoom -  a new addition to the stable but really can't fault this considering the alternative is the Nagler 3-6mm zoom at over £300 more, I paid £120 on Amazon for the convenience of availability and speed but understand these can be picked up more cheaply direct from China.  Flat field, very sharp and contrasty (detail on Jupiter indistinguishable from my Pentax XW 5mm). Also a lightweight but sturdy form factor, brilliant value without compromising quality in my view. 

(& yes, my other top value find is the Stella Lyra 30mm UFF, stunning eypepiece & well worth saving up the extra £29 beyond the remit of this thread topic!) 

Edited February 13 by SuburbanMak

[Don Pensack]

2 hours ago, Naughty Neal said:

A thread where all can place their top buys in one place , one could include used ep's but that defeats the object so lets keep this one to brand new ep's. I took the Q as Michael aka Mr Spock alluded to the title and sounded reasonable for those who are on a tighter budget.
  

My SV 18mm  UFF branded ep was a delight to look through last evening ,  it brought the night sky alive with pin sharp bright vista's to the edge  in my f12.5 scopetech 80mm acro it gave 55x mag, now looking forward to giving it an outing in my f11.2 ed 102 Ascent .  Typically about £109 though my one was  had for a bargain new price of £51.66.  The uff is sold under a range of other branded names and celestron ultima edge is one as well as stellalyra UFF.  UF or UFF typically they are sold as,  the range consists of 10, 15, 18 & 24mm in 1.25" form for sub £150 with 60 - 65 degree fov.  The other ep  is a 2" 30mm ep and world class but over the price range of the thread. 

 

Sv 215 zoom an absolute little gem of an eyepiece, superb value at under £130 typically offered at.  But even so much better when on offer  with 50% off,  it is a no brainer to buy at that price on a Black Friday or xmas offer price.

 

Take my Eyepiece Buyer's Guide:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/862337-2023-eyepiece-buyers-guide/?p=12473522

Add a column for price and start looking up prices.

I think you'll find well over half of the eyepieces will be in your price range, so the list will contain hundreds of entries.

This will not be simple.  I used to put prices in the spreadsheet, but it seemed many prices changed every day, so it proved impossible to keep up.

Suffice it to say, the huge number of eyepieces in your list will make the task of looking up all the prices and converting to local currency a daunting process that will take you a couple months.

Then you will have to go back and do it all again to account for sales and price changes and even currency exchange changes.

What would you do if an eyepiece at £147 went to £152?

I've just started on the 2024 version, and it is proving to be difficult because many companies seem to have added some new ones since last year.

Edited February 13 by Don Pensack

[russ]

1 hour ago, SuburbanMak said:

Baader Classic Orthos - now £54 each I believe and the 18mm & 10mm are as sharp and flat as I've seen, narrower field at 45 degree yes but stunning fidelity for the price. The 6mm is tight on eye relief but equally good if you are ok with getting up close and don't wear spec's to observe. The 18mm is my favourite eyepiece and always finds itself slipping into a pocket as I am heading out  

SVBony 3-8mm Zoom -  a new addition to the stable but really can't fault this considering the alternative is the Nagler 3-6mm zoom at over £300 more, I paid £120 on Amazon for the convenience of availability and speed but understand these can be picked up more cheaply direct from China.  Flat field, very sharp and contrasty (detail on Jupiter indistinguishable from my Pentax XW 5mm). Also a lightweight but sturdy form factor, brilliant value without compromising quality in my view. 

(& yes, my other top value find is the Stella Lyra 30mm UFF, stunning eypepiece & well worth saving up the extra £29 beyond the remit of this thread topic!) 

I second all of this. The Baader Orthos are superb and the SVBony 3-8mm zoom is my outright fav eyepiece, trumping the TV DeLite and Pentax XW in my collection. For all my planetary views in 2023 and my single only view in 2024, I reach for the SVBony over all else. So much so, that there was no place in the collection for the 6.5mm Morpheus and 9mm Delite. 

Also a shout out for the Baader 8-24 zoom but its just not as special as the SVBony. Baader has a variable AFOV, which is annoying and the build is not is the same league as the SVBony. 

[SuburbanMak]

6 minutes ago, russ said:

Also a shout out for the Baader 8-24mm

Love my Baader Zoom, only reason I didn’t mention it here is that at £237 it’s a way outside the price range described in the thread.  Also agree that having used the SV Bony which is genuinely parfocal,  having to tweak focus every time you change fl is a bit of a drag, but still a great bit of kit. 

 

[John]

With a limit of £150 the Svbony 3-8 zoom is all I can currently offer up for this thread I'm afraid 🙄

If I was allowed used prices (all of my eyepieces but 2 were purchased used) then a couple more might just squeeze in.

I recently parted with a set of 4 Astro Hutech HD orthos (4mm, 5mm, 6mm and 7mm) which I think retail at around £89 apiece, considerably less 2nd hand though. They were excellent performers within the usual abbe ortho constraints of a 40 degree AFoV, small eye lenses and eye relief around 80% of the focal length. The Svbony zoom seemed to match their performance though while offering more comfort.

There are plenty of very good sub-£150 eyepieces about these days though so the thread should have no trouble generating a good list of candidates 🙂

The Baader Classic Ortho 18mm and 10mm are pretty darn good for their cost that's for sure. I don't currently have those though.

Edited February 13 by John

[Saganite]

+1 for the Svbony zoom, a very good buy at well under £150.  

My offering is the humble Tele Vue 11mm plossl @ £99, a superb performer.  I had to buy two of course for binoviewing but in my Denkmeier with power switch  and Vixen ED103 Swt I get... 101x , 145x, and 180x without changing eyepieces.

Edited February 14 by Saganite

[Mr Spock]

Vixen SLVs are orthos with 20mm eye relief. £134.

Nirvanas are excellent 82° eyepieces at just £85.

StellaLyra UFF (not 30mm - that's over budget) range from £119 to £79.

[Astronomist]

+1 for the nirvanas! They have very decent edge correction for the price, and even the giant 28mm is only just over £150.

[JTEC]

I’d suggest Japanese orthoscopics and Televue Plössls.  These deliver ‘top notch’ optical quality - at least in terms of what I look for - at well below the (rather arbitrary) £150 threshold - though not all observers will find them convenient to use. Personally, I wouldn’t go for any zooms, including the much vaunted Svbony 3-8.  I bought one and was very impressed until I compared it with fixed focal length eyepieces by Tak and Vixen within that focal range. So it sold it. At the price, though, I agree, it’s an absolute bargain. If you want wider fields of view and more eye relief that the orthos and shorter TVPs offer, you’d have to look elsewhere, of course and, as others have said, there’s plenty to  choose from 🙂

[Naughty Neal]

Typically Don it's not about the list you have on CN and what is   available  but more about forumites user  recommends and ep's they actually use .

We see so many which ep's for beginners or those on a tighter budget that a more meaningful  ep thread may be of better interest,  forum users can peruse and see those that forumites are actually using.

We know for instance that the paradigm/BST's are recommended a lot but not all the range is great so a good place for   users to have their say and recommend the better FL's and the various ep's from experinece rather then having posts of just hearsay. 

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, Saganite said:

+1 for the Svbony zoom a very good buy at well under £150.  

My offering is the humble Tele Vue 11mm plossl @ £99, a superb performer.  I had to buy two of course for binoviewing but in my Denkmeier with power switch  and Vixen ED103 Swt I get... 101x , 145x, and 180x without changing eyepieces.

I’m with you on this Steve - the TV Plossls aren’t the flashiest of choices but they remain among the best eyepieces on the market. 25mm and down are all under £150. Superb for binoviewing and barlowing, solar Ha, planets, Moon and deeper sky.

[Don Pensack]

On 13/02/2024 at 09:28, Mr Spock said:

Vixen SLVs are orthos with 20mm eye relief. £134.

Nirvanas are excellent 82° eyepieces at just £85.

StellaLyra UFF (not 30mm - that's over budget) range from £119 to £79.

Vixen SLVs have 6-8 elements depending on focal length, and are not orthoscopic or Orthoscopic eyepieces.

They are also 45-50° apparent field eyepieces.  The UFFs range from 60° (10.5mm) to 65° (15-24mm).

The Nirvanas (United Optics 82°) are a lot wider.

 

One note: there are a lot of eyepieces sold out there as "Flat Field".  These are not the same quality as the "ultra flat field" eyepieces.

The Ultra Flat Field eyepieces are sold as:

APM

Altair Astro

Stellalyra

Tecnosky

Celestron Ultima Edge

Meade UHD

Svbony

SkyRover

 

[cajen2]

Right at the budget end of the price range, the Vixen NPLs (I can only recommend the longer f/l ones as they have reasonable eye relief). I bought a 30mm back when all I had was budget EPs but it's a brilliant bit of kit for the price. Another Plossl but with a slightly wider FOV at 50°. I've never wanted to replace it and always use it as a finder EP for when I'm using my 1.25" diagonal. Sharp, clear views.

[Louis D]

A bit off-topic, but does anyone recall a 30mm to 32mm Plossl/Plossl-like comparison ever being done?  I've always wondered how much better the Vixen SLV, Tele Vue and Brandon are than the budget Plossl lines, Celestron Omni, GSO, Vixen NPL, etc.  I'd also be interested how they compare to the vintage Clave, 5 element Meade 4000 from Kowa, etc.  The Brandon in particular costs more the 30mm UFF, so it had better do something spectacularly well.

[Don Pensack]

I tried several Brandons in a 130mm f/6.5 scope, and the edges of the fields weren't corrected for astigmatism.

I tried again with an 8" f/10 and found the same.

They were provided by Questar for long focal length Maksutovs.  They might be OK there, but I felt then, and still feel, they should be better corrected for shorter

f/ratios to be worth the price  of the competitors that are.

[John]

4 hours ago, Louis D said:

A bit off-topic, but does anyone recall a 30mm to 32mm Plossl/Plossl-like comparison ever being done?  I've always wondered how much better the Vixen SLV, Tele Vue and Brandon are than the budget Plossl lines, Celestron Omni, GSO, Vixen NPL, etc.  I'd also be interested how they compare to the vintage Clave, 5 element Meade 4000 from Kowa, etc.  The Brandon in particular costs more the 30mm UFF, so it had better do something spectacularly well.

This is more limited that I think you are looking for but I compared the Vixen NPL 30mm with the Baader Classic 32mm plossl a while back:

Baader Classic 32mm Plossl meets Vixen 30mm NPL Plossl - Member Equipment Reviews - Stargazers Lounge

On a side note, I can hardly believe that nearly 11 years have elapsed since I did that comparison 😬

 

Edited February 16 by John

[Mr Spock]

I have an old Meade 32mm 4000 series that is exceptionally sharp. It's in my eyepiece case but I never use it. At that focal length I need a wider field than 50°.