Celestron 8-24mm Zoom ?

[bobafett]

At a cost of less than half of the baadar hyperion zoom or WO zoom I was wondering how the celestron 8-24mm zoom stood up to these ?

Reviews that I've found of all 3 of these zooms look to be fairly favourable except for at the extremes (i.e. at 8mm and at 24mm) but I haven't been able to find a "side by side" comparison of these particular 3.

I like the idea that the celestron is apparantly parfocal through the zooms ?

My idea is that I'm happy with my low mag celestron 40mm and 25mm omni plossls and i'm happy with my newly acquired 8mm TMB planetary and my Celestron X-Cel 5mm at the hi mag end so I'm looking to improve the mid range magnifications in one hit by replacing my 20,15,12.5,10mm plossls with a decent zoom EP.

I'd also be gaining all the FL's in between and gaining the convenience of not swapping eyepieces as often.

Obviously I'm attracted to the celestron because of cost but are the others really worth double ?

And how about 2 of these zooms in a bino-viewer ? (not that I have one..........yet LOL ! )

There seems to be various skywatcher zooms on the market too but again I have now idea how these would stack up against the others - the celestron just felt like the right mix of price V quality

Thoughts ?

[sn00p]

I have the Seben 8-24mm zoom and am VERY pleased with it. Unfortunately i do not have any experience with any others to compare. So here is amy findings with the Seben (£45 delivered direct from Seben)

Firstly i will now say im new to stargazing and these are my findings as a relative novice :-) However i have quoted the difference between Eyepieces i own or had use of to make a fair comment on what "I" see.

When the item eventually arrived (1st 1 lost/stolen then a replacement sent) i eagerly opened it to find it comes in a hard case cannister (quite large maybe Mc Donalds coffee cup sized but slightly less diameter) Real tuff hard case that wouldnt get squished. The lens itself is a fine piece of engineering with a good solid but heavy feel. I checked the coatings and they all looked perfect. It has a locking recess on the barrel of which i find annoying but others like the idea of so a personal thing. Once inserted and locked down the zoom works flawlessly... It did take a few twists and turns for the action to become incredibly smooth and linear i pressumed it was greasing itself as you could see the residue. A quick wipe and have not seen any since. Viewing imo is VERY nice... for reference i have skywatcher 10/25mm eyepieces that came with the scope, GSO 32mm and a TMB 6mm to compare too so maybe not the highest grade EP's but certainly some of the better ones in my price range :-) I would say the zoom gave greater clarity and more brightness than the supplied 10 and 25mm skywatchers i have so for that i was happy as these to be honest are not too shabby anyways. Ive taken it down to 8mm on both the moon and Saturn and it performs rather well. I dont see any more clarity in my TMB EP although obviously more mag but less bright. I see very little degradation across the fov and only on the most outer edges. Next up was M44 at 24mm. I was surprised here at just how bright and wide fov it gave as apposed to my SW 25. The clarity in the stars seemed much brighter with slightly bluer colouring i much prefered it to the SW. Unfortunately i didnt own the GS 32mm at the time so couldnt compare. Hopefully some time reall soon i will get the chance. Now the beauty of this little device. Splitting stars...... This for me is just the icing on the cake. Find your favorite double star and have the zoom set at 24mm, centre and focus. With a twist of the zoom the star splits from 1 to 2 in a smooth animation.... Its funny letting someone new try it them selves... dont tell them just point out the star youve selected and then let them view through the scope and split them themselves... You get the "oh" and amazed sigh lol.... Being parfocal throughout the zoom is a great feature as well as not having to swap eyepieces every time you want different magnification. Ive become very fond and attached to my zoom and would most definately say its my most used EP. Infact i have cut into my foam and reserved a slot in my scope case as i would not like to leave home without it. If i only pack 1 lens then for me this is it....

All said and dont it does have its draw backs in that it is quite large and heavy. Gives good views but obviously not as good as some high end dedicated EP's. The zoom has markers for zoom range spread out in equal amounts but doesnt have precise Marks... just the numbers so its a guess as to zoom where you could be a few mm out. Real shame as i would have prefered a number at front and end and then individual markers for each mm on its way round. For me the pros far out weigh the cons and at £45 its more than worth the money.

I now use this as my primary mid range EP.

[sn00p]

oh and as for 2 x zooms and binoviewers thats some "SERIOUS" weight hanging off thhe back of your scope.... i know my mount wouldnt take it (Synscan Goto) and i certainly wouldnt feel comfortable with it even if it did lol...

[Space Cowboy]

Nice review Snoop! May dabble in a zoom myself....I've seen some disparaging reviews in the past but i do like the concept having used zoom binoculars which are regarded by many as the fast food of optical observing.

[bobafett]

Had a read of some more reviews and it would seam that the baader hyperion is the one to go for as it has greater field of view.

However..........

No-one seems to have them in stock as there's a new improved version coming out ?

[johninderby]

There have been two Celestron 8-24 zooms. The original was actually made by LV and was the same as the Meade or Televue. Unfortunately it was replaced a few years ago by a cheap generic zoom using the same part number.

The Hyperion is very good and it will be interesting to see juust how "improved" the latest version will be.

John

[bobafett]

OK, well the Hyperion zoom was top of my list but since pretty much everyone is out of stock awaiting the new model that wasn't an option (for now) and then a used Celestron Zoom popped up in the for sale section on here - after a bit of haggling I got it for £45 which I was happy with as an introduction to zoom viewing.

I've had some time to play with it now and overall I have to say I am quite pleased.

It's nice for planetary/lunar observation as you can zoom into the perfect limit of the seeing for that evening giving the largest magnification available to you on any particular night. The narrow FOV at the longer FL's limit it's use at these lengths for DSO's I guess but not a problem on the planets. I much prefer this to some of the plossl's and SMA's I had been using which were in this range - namely a 15mm,12.5mm and a 10mm so they've all gone now !

I like the fact that in this range the celestron offers a larger chunk of glass to put your eye up to and a nice field of view. My guess would be that compared with bog standard plossl's the FOV for the Celestron zoom is worse from around 24mm-20mm, similar around 19mm-17mm and better from the 16mm-8mm range. Just my opinion though.

So this sits nicely in my eyepiece range to replace the mid to short FL plossls/SMA's that I didn't really enjoy using.

Working up through the mags now I go - 40mm plossl, 25mm plossl, 24-8mm Zoom, 8mm TMB, 5mm X-Cel.

And that works for me............for now !

So when the new hyperion comes out and the first reviews are available I may opt for one of those - I'm sure I should be able to re-coup the outlay on this Celestron to put toward it so pretty happy with my decision