X-Cel ent!

[The Warthog]

Just before the '05 Cherry Springs Star Party, I bought an 8mm X-Cel, and quickly pronounced myself happy with it. I bought the Celestron kit at a bout the same time, and with a little experience, settled down to using my 32mm and 6mm Plossls, and the 8mm X-Cel as my 'usual' eyepieces. I occasionally ventured to use the 4mm out of the kit, and sometimes the 16 (15?) if I didn't want to use the barlow.

Anyhow, I bought a 5mm and 12.5mm X-Cel from a friend just before this year's CSSP, and picked them up there. I didn't really get a chance to use them, as I mostly used my new 20mm Enhanced Wide Angle ep that night. I have used all three X-Cels since I came back, though, and am happy to declare them to be good value for the money.

Each of these eps has a great big piece of glass to look through, as opposed to the pea-sized hole in most shorter Plossls I've seen. (the X-Cels are plossls with a built-in Barlow.) The FOV is sharp almost to the edges, and timing things crossing the FOV in each has confirmed for me that you are getting a 52 Degree apparent FOV in each of these. I have had occasional problems with kidney-beaning, but that seems to be a result of not taking advantage of the eye relief (21mm, I think) and putting my eye too close. If I keep back, I don't have the kidney beaning problem.

The eye relief and big AFOV gives a relaxed feel to using these eps.

They are a great improvement over ordinary plossls, and a good step up in quality if you can't afford Naglers, or even Ultimas.

[GordonCopestake]

I had a set of the X-cels and liked them apart from the kidney-beaning which I personally found too distracting. The eye relief was great though and meant i could use the scope with my glasses on which is a boon! I ended up selling the 3 x-cels i had and putting the cash to other things though. Great eye-pieces and a good cheap alternative to the Vixen LV's

[daz]

The recent Practical Astronomer gives them a good thumbs up. Would be worth investing in one or two I think.

As a spectacle wearer, the LER is of interest, although I tend to ditch the specs when observing...

[exjet]

You've given me that comfort feeling Warthog! Many thanks. I've just purchased an X-Cell 5mm for an SLT 104 that's a new addition to the stable. The 5mm hasn't arrived yet and I just needed that posting. The 104 SLT is just great. I needed a lightweight grab and go since the anno dominis effect is well and truly here at last!

[GordonCopestake]

104SLT?

[exjet]

There I go - bragging about size again. OK it's 102 102 but you can't blame a guy for trying. Celestron by the way.

[GordonCopestake]

Actually I like the 102SLT's, i was gonna buy one for my grab and go scope and put an ED80 on it

[exjet]

I have an 8" STC but it's just toooo heavy for me to lug around anymore, even just in and out of doors. The SLT is a new venture that will address that point. It's lightweight, needs no polar alignment and simple. Optically not really put to the test yet. Should it not be up to my liking I'll do the same as you mentioned and put a different OTA on the mount. The electronic altazimuth is amazing and the 4000 object database interesting and adequate.

[GordonCopestake]

If you ever want to sell it there are lots of people here who would be ineterested in an SLT mount, myself included

The same goes for the C8 actually

[The Warthog]

One thing I neglected to mention is that these eps are HUGE. The 8mm is about 100mm long, the 5mm about 125mm long, and the 12.5mm about 90mm long. Really impress the neighbours!

[GordonCopestake]

Hehe, the 5mm one is the biggest i had