Budget long eye relief planetary eyepiece?

[E621Keith]

Hi guys, I need some advice on buying long eye relief planetary eyepiece on a budget (<£80). I have a 80mm f6 refractor and my current 10mm X-cel doesn't give enough magnification for planets, so I want something 6mm or less.

Since my eyes have astigma and short-sightedness, I need to wear glasses while observing, so long eye relief will be necessary. I doubt ortho and plossl less the 6mm will have sufficient eye relief, so what are my choices?

Currently I'm looking at these

TMB planetary 6mm

WO SPL 3, 5 mm

Orion Epic ED 5.1mm

Used Hyperion 3.5, 5mm

While I liked the Celestron x-cel, the coating on mine came off when I tried to clean it with lens fluid and lens tissue, so I think I will avoid another one.

Thanks in advance

Keith

[Ben Ritchie]

If you can stretch to ~£95 or so then i'd look at a (used) Radian, which I find very comfortable to use with or without glasses. I'd put them ahead of anything on your list.

If not, then the TMB (or clones) are very good value for money, and you could pick up a couple for your budget. They're not in the same league as the Radian, but hard to beat on price/performance grounds.

[step_hen]

I have the TMB 6mm and a set of WO SPL in 3mm, 6mm and 12.5mm (Dont think they come in 5mm?). I find the eye relief of the 6mm SPL better than the 6mm TMB, and i observe with glasses on all the time, otherwise they give pretty much identical performance. The 3mm is rarely used as its just too powerfl for most of my scopes. I think i will eventually replace mine with Radians, havin been bitten by the Televue bug! But at over £100 second hand i'll have to wait for Christmas to pass first, unless Santa is kind!

Stephen

[astroimpulse]

I like the look of the Explorer Dual ED EPs skies_unlimited sell. I'm going to get a bunch of those and a 6mm TMB to tide me over. Any better EPs will be bought as and when I know exactly what I want to improve.

For £36 a piece they seem like a sensible solution.

[davew]

Hi Keith,

There are some WO SPLs in the for sale section. I know you can't access it but the seller is MG1. Give him a PM ?

And no, I don't get a cut

Dave.

[Peter Drew]

How about a good quality Barlow, it would give you extra magnification whilst retaining the original eye lens diameter and eye relief of your current eyepieces.

[E621Keith]

Thanks for the advice. I will look for a used Radian or SPL for a few weeks, and if I can't find any I will get the TMB from Ebay. £36 each does sound very attractive and I can get 3 for the price of one used Radian.

Does anyone have any experience with Vixen NLV and LVW? I'll be travelling to the Far East in a few months time, and it seems like prices over there for NLV, and with a bit of stretch LVW, will be in my budget.

[AWR]

I've only got a lowly Vixen NPL, but I like the quality of it very much!

Andrew

[MG1]

Unfortunately Dave I've now sold my set...

But I think Paxo (Steve) mentioned he may have some SPL's up for grabs too...he might be worth a PM.

HTH

Mike