Meade 5000 34mm SWA Eyepiece

[simon84]

Well, what can I say, other than WOW!!!

After much looking around and searching for the low power EP for the collection I stumbled across this beauty on sale at Ace Cameras. The price point was a massive insentive but the reports I've read on this EP were quite impressive aswell.

Ordered this Monday afternoon and it literally just arrived so this review in parts is pretty much just about first impressions.

First of all the packaging this EP comes in is first class, really first class. It protects the EP beautifuly. The other thing about the box is its size, its massive. It measures 143mm across, 140mm tall and 172mm deep and when I took it out of the brown box I really felt I had something of quality in my hands.

On opening the Meade box my first impression was of how big the EP is, its really big. Have a look at the images below and you'll see how big it is compared to my Blackberry and there not small themselves.

It looks stunning, the flash of green across the brushed aluminium really stands out and makes you just want to touch it.

Next I had a look at the end caps and the one on the nosepiece is your typical cap which sits on the nosepiece nice and snug, at the other end though the cap is shaped to fit snuggly on the body an whilst it will do the job quite nicely when its in its box or in the EP tray if you were ever to pop the cap on the EP whilst it was in the scope I get the feeling that out in the cold it will just fall off.

Had a play with the eye relief next and this is very smooth indeed and there is a lot of it, the whole body of the EP twists and at its max can give you 24.5mm of eye relief which is just loads. The cup itself is a hard rubber and isnt the most comfortable thing to press your eye up to but I'm pretty sure the views will be that good that you'll soon forget about that.

Weight wise the EP weighs in at 800 grammes so is a bit on the heavy side of things but not as heavy as it looks. So balancing will be an issue.

Overall though this piece fills me with confidence and the desire to get out there and use it is huge.

The finish of it is just gorgeous and being an engineer myself I would love to have made something like this.

I would quite happily pay the RRP of £249 for this but getting it at £149 new is just an amazing price to pay.

Hopefully I can follow this up with how well the EP performs but for that I will have to finish building my dobsonian base for my F5 12" scope. Very soon fingers crossed.

[russ]

It's a stunning eyepiece........enjoy!!!! :)

[Revs]

Nice one Simon. Can't wait to receive mine. Thanks again for the heads-up

[astroimpulse]

That plus the 300 = OMG!!!

What a steal

[Space Beagle]

Nice innit....!!

Just wait till you have a look through it too....Cor blimey!!

Doc

[John]

Looks a lot of eyepiece for the price

Please let us know what the views are like as soon a you have a chance, especially in the F/5 12" - F/5 and faster is a real tester for wide angle eyepieces.

I've only tried one item from the Meade 5000 range, the 2" 2x TeleXtender which was really excellent.

Congratulations

[simon84]

No worries Revs, glad you were able to get one aswell.

I am really looking forward to getting on the 300P, luckily for I have the single speed moonlite on there. I think its going to need it. Ace assured me it should perform really well in an F5 newt. The only thing thats worrying me a bit is that the moonlite dosnt have a compression ring in there, just a single screw to hold the EP in.

I'm going to start building the base at the weekend, so fingers crossed I will be out viewing with it by next week so long as the weather plays ball.

I still cant over the quality of the thing, I'm going to take a piccy of it lined up with the other EP's, its going to make the Moonfish look sooooo tiny....

[Herbig]

I've just got hold of one of these little beauties, if it's as good as the other Meade 5000's I've got I'll be well chuffed

[fredster]

Stunning eyepieces. Been tempted to add one as my low power eyepiece to compliment the ES 24mm.

[alan potts]

Yes it's a nice eyepiece, I've had mine a few years, it still weighs the same, this is about the only drawback. Enjoy yours

Alan.

[paul schofield]

Just received my 24mm swa, well a week ago and not had a chance to use it yet. Looks like a lovely eyepiece, well made. Quite big and heavy, hand grenade sized. I believe this size s.w.a. has been discontinued, wonder why. Anyway cant wait to give it a go....soon hopefully.

[jam1e1]

Also have this ep is fantastic performer in 250pds and 120ed, sharp up to 80% edge and doesn't deteriorate too much after that is well corrected at f4.9. Just bought the Meade 5k uwa 24mm, it's bigger than the 34mm! Again this is also great performer, showed very slight astigmatism at edges at f4.9 but not complaining, certainly notice extra fov from swa to uwa

[mobi]

Here is a photo of a Meade SWA 40mm Extremely Huge!

[wrinkly]

Here is a photo of a Meade SWA 40mm Extremely Huge!

Makes even my beer belly look small.

The really sad part is it is not caused by beer, just incredible laziness.