I am very interested in viewing Nebulae do you think this set up will work well for that or do I need other eyepieces or filters? Aspheric eyepiece is a variation of Plossl design, it has an anti-reflection coating on the front glass surface to ensure maximum light transmission and will also provide your instrument with better quality images if you need higher magnification levels. Looking forward to first use. Any 1.25 eyepiece will work with the BH Zoom 2 adapter. I also like to have my face physically in contact with the eyepiece (or the eyepiece cup) so the tight eye relief of the shorter focal lengths actually works really well for me. In our example, we targeted 200X as the top magnification. Nothing will stop you from trying to go higher, but in all likelihood, the image will be poor and not worth the cost of eyepieces to achieve it. With a refractor, SCT or MCT, it is usually better to get a correct image diagonal than a correcting eyepiece. If one Super Plossl specifies it uses a 5 lens design, then you can definitely consider it a true Super Plossl that might offer better performance, but no brand has released any of those for decades. I continue to be very pleased with the ES82 eyepieces. https://telescopicwatch.com/best-telescope-mounts-for-astrophotography/, Then you look at the optical tubes. I am very near-sighted, barely see the big E on the vision chart without glasses. They can also be found as Orion Expanse sporting a blue line rather than gold. Yes, the wider field of view of a Plossl is very helpful, but 40 degrees of Kellners isnt a soda straw (unless you are used to looking through very wide field eyepiece. Plossl eyepiece is good for astronomy and microscopy. Take a look at your manual or users guide. I would recommend the Baader Hyperion Zoom for any telescope. The stock 9 and 15mm Omnis were very good. Kellners are the other popular design for amateur stargazing, go ahead and check out that article if you want to dive deeper into the subject. As long as you take good care of them, Plossls can last you a lifetime, and you will be able to use them with your next telescope if you upgrade at some point. After these, we have mostly proprietary designs from various eyepiece companies. i dont have 1 of everything, and i bought the best i could afford on a low budget; meade and orion. The Plossl's are very easy to modify, allowing me to use the bino-viewer on, all my refracting telescopes without having to cut down the tube length, p.s. The telescope comes with a 2x Barlow so I was thinking of getting one of the zooms you recommended. Most telescopes come with one or two eyepieces, which gives you one or two magnification options. Their 50 to 52 degree AFOV is wide enough for general observing. It also gives the widest possible exit pupil in my dob and SCT, very handy when using nebula filters. Meade telescope maksutov eyepiece ETX-105EC Super Plossl 6.4mm 1.25" w capsule. I havent been into the hobby for long but my experience is in line with whats been said. As I mentioned earlier in the article, not all Plossls are created equal, which simply means that there are good Plossls and then there are bad Plossls. Plossl eyepieces have a wider field of view that can go from 50 to 56 degrees. Focus on the magnifications rather than the mm of the eyepieces. Kellner eyepieces have 3 lenses cemented together and have a 35-50 degree field of view. However, the BH Zoom is by far my most used eyepiece. The Big Bang Optics participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for websites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. As the clear cut worlds best eyepiece manufacturer, their name should at least be mentioned in an article like this. Stargazinghelp.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. The "sharpness" you are seeing may well be better explained by the focal length of the ep than the quality of Plossls in general. I have seen elsewhere discussions about the exit pupil of eyepieces. Note to spectacle wearers: Plossl eyepieces with 15mm and longer focal lengths are good choices for spectacle wearers but for shorter focal lengths the Celestron XCel LX series have greater eye-relief so are better suited. That's how cost-efficient the entire package is! Both will provide the same magnification. Despite this, I also have some Plossls which are indispensable. 1. The views through it are very impressive, and it always amazes me when I get that one out. Now we just divide it up and fill in some sample focal lengths. There are some very good choices in this range. However, I have eyepieces with much smaller exit pupils and they work fine. Hayppy that now I have more facts to put in my decision. I do not miss beating my eyelashes against a 9.7mm Meade Plossl that I used to own. Have Any Astronauts Been Lost in Space Forever. But you need to know, first, if you will be wearing glasses when you observe. So you ended up with: Hi - I bought these from another AM'er 1 year or so back, thinking I will get into visual astro, But never found the inclination, So here it is for sale 9mm Nagler type 6 mint with box and caps,16mm Nagler type 5,optics are exc. Required fields are marked *. This is perfect for a 25mm Plossl (an extremely common standard) and downright luxurious with a 32mm Plossl, but when you get below about 12.5mm or 10mm, it can begin to get difficult to use. A four-element eyepiece was made by putting together two achromatic doublets with different focal lengths. Some will offer longer eye relief which can be important to eyeglass wearers. I see that there are some optical limits to how wide an FOV a 1.25 EP can manage at bigger (like 32mm) focal lengths. We are a reader-supported organization. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Better edge correction with a short-focus telescope is one of the things you pay extra money for, and sophisticated eyepiece designs have as many as eight elements. condition as described, a good transaction. But dont fear that you will waste your investment as eyepieces are standard sizes. Heres the short answer Plossl eyepieces are generally better than Kellner eyepieces, but they also tend to be more expensive. But I have one little niggle. Do you think the Baader Hyperion Zoom would work OK with the Skywatcher 150p? In 1860, Georg Simon Plossl invented the Plossl eyepiece. https://telescopicwatch.com/best-barlow-lens-and-how-to/, Celestron 8-24 Zoom Review On many occasions, that will be too high power for the atmospheric conditions. Major telescope brands such as Celestron supplies Kellner eyepieces with their r least expensive telescopes and still may. The one exception I would keep in mind would be when working with Newtonian reflector telescopes below F5. Best Telescopes For 10 Year Old Kids: Reviews and Buying Guide, The Complete Guide to the Planets You Can See With a Telescope, The Best Barlow Lenses: Reviews and Buying Guide. So, I think it worth your while to try the Plssls. A Plossl eyepiece has a field of view thats very wide, so if youre looking at the full moon or some other object in space with it, chances are youll see the entire thing. By having a range of magnifications, you can optimize the image, which means you need more eyepieces. The only one not in the article is the Orion Q70 which is available in 38 mm, 32 mm and 26 mm. Many thanks. i did buy an astro-tech 3.2 paradigm ed from a cloudynights.com forum member. This type of eyepiece provides you with wide-field views without any distortion due to its use as an achromatic lens system which reduces chromatic aberrations by combining two lenses made from different types of glass materials together on each surface. So, for your 30 mm, 82/60 = 1.36 degrees. Kellner and Plossl- both are two different types of eyepieces for telescopes. Disclosure - If you buy something via our link, we may earn a commission with no additional expense to you. If you want a very good eyepiece with a bit wider field of view but are on a budget, these are very good choices. I had one and sold it. These "other" ones I speak of, aren't technically that, they are a 5 element eyepiece, of a different design. I believe the 5000 UWA's are good as well. Think of these as your Ford, Chevy, and Toyota of eyepieces. These eyepieces are technically called Symmetrics, since Plossls can have different focal lengths for each doublet, but they are always marketed as Plossl. So its best for use during duller times when there isnt much brightness visible. Plossl eyepieces are typically used for observing and viewing things at long distances, but they can also be useful when using a telescope to provide both magnifying power and erecting the images. Plossls and Kellners, like other simple eyepiece designs, have moderate fields of view and tend to have short eye relief as you scale them down to shorter focal lengths. https://telescopicwatch.com/?s=barlow, Best of luck with your new telescope. What happens if you use an eyepiece that has a the wrong exit pupil? If you do upgrade, youll probably want to go for a different eyepiece design than a Plosslsomething with a sharper image or a wider field of view or a longer eye relief (or all three.). Am I correct? I need some eyepieces with long FL for low magnifications. 32 mm = 18.75X 16 mm = 37.5X (32 mm eyepiece with a 2X barlow), 12 mm = 50X (If you have a 25 mm that came with your scope, use Barlow for 12.5 mm), 4 mm = 150X (8 mm eyepiece with a 2X Barlow), 3 mm = 200X (6 mm eyepiece with a 2X Barlow), 24 mm = 25X (the low power end of the zoom), 8 mm = 75X (24 mm zoom setting in a 3X Barlow), 2.66 mm = 225X (8 mm zoom setting in a 3X Barlow), True field of view or FOV = Apparent field of view (AFOV) eyepiece / magnification. It costs a lot to get that last 10% of performance. If you stumble the first few uses, dont be discouraged. I agree. Plssl eyepieces are good all-around performers, producing sharp images at the center of the field, but they have only four lens elements. For one thing, a wider field of view is almost always more pleasant. These are exceptional eyepieces, and only available on the used market nowadays. But some people demand the very best, and it is available, at a price. Lets illustrate with an example using a 1200 mm FL telescope. In this article, were going to talk about what is a Plossl eyepiece, what are its components, how do they work, how many types are there and how youd buy a good Plossl eyepiece. 70 mm scope will have a max of 140X for planning purposes. This design has some advantages over other designs, such as the Kellner eyepiece or Orthoscopic eyepieces. These sport a 60-degree apparent field of view, about a 20% wider apparent field of view than Plossl eyepieces. Although Kellner eyepieces will help you learn a lot in the beginning but soon will realize that youre missing out on something, and eventually you will be tempted to spend money on another good quality eyepiece. > Click here to jump to the Best Eyepieces section. Are Plossl eyepieces good? Generally, Plssl eyepieces are best suited to Newtonian and fast telescopes. Correct image diagonals are easier for beginners and they are great for using the scope during the day, but experience people dont use them for astronomy. Most of Celestrons entry-level telescopes are sold with Kellners (and other cheap but reasonable-quality designs like RKEs or Konigs), whereas their more expensive SCTs tend to come with a single 25mm Plossl. There is the 56mm Meade Plossl which magically turns my short FL refractors into their own finder scopes. This will become more apparent the wider the AFOV is of the eyepiece, in my experience. If money is not a concern, you cant go wrong with Tele Vue eyepieces, any Tele Vue eyepieces. That said, I should also tell you that not all Plossls are created equal. i didnt have all this simply-put information when i bought my orion st-80 as my christmas present to myself in 2020. i started out with several pair of binoculars i bought used off ebay, then bought the scope. Looking from different sorts I found the Baader Aspheric 31mm and 36mm.these two eyepieces allow me to switch between 2" and 1.25"just by changing the barrel. I often had to drop back to about 180X because of poor seeing and transparency. No, adapters are not needed but they may come in handy when you want to change the focal length or add other lenses such as filters or Barlow lenses. This eye piece provides the maximum true field of view in the 1.25 inch format. Outstanding job Jack. Videos for related products. Elena is a Canadian journalist and researcher. Jupiter and Saturn are low in the sky now. 4mm Eyepiece vs 20mm Eyepiece. The downside to this type of lens is that they can cause chromatic aberration which creates colored spots around bright objects such as planets or stars due to the different wavelengths not going through equally. Because of this setup, you might also hear a Plossl eyepiece referred to as a symmetrical eyepiece. The Plossl was also called a Kellner Type III in some earlier references; in the 1950's, Edmund Scientific sold a "Kellner" eyepiece made from war surplus lenses, but it actually consisted of two achromats in the classic Plossl configuration. Plossls provide very good eye relief for eyeglass wearers in focal lengths of about 25mm and longer. In some cases, an object is so large (i.e., the Moon, the Pleiades, the Orion Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy) that a narrow field of view can only show you part of the object, whereas a wider field of view could show the whole object at the same magnification. I've got a one-off plossl like that in my kit that I'll probably never sell, (aside from my 5 element ones) and it's one that is rarely seen. short answer: yes. 3. These sizes have become the industrys standard sizes. I have Celestron and the Baader Hyperion. If you just want eyepiece recommendations and dont care about the details, Im adding that section right below before we go into the specifications that answer the above questions and make use of the formulas. Plossls are the clear winner here in most cases, unless you have one of the wider-field 50-degree Kellners. I also have an older smoothtop 20mm Meade 4000 that is also 5 element, and it is a fine eyepiece too, compared to another 20mm of the same vintage. The larger barrel allows them to create an eyepiece with a higher AFOV. Here's the short answer - Plossl eyepieces are generally better than Kellner eyepieces, but they also tend to be more expensive. They also offer more eye relief than Plossls at the shorter focal lengths. And I am a visually observing focused person. It offers good color correction and high-contrast images. I need your advice on it. I have seen some gatekeeping in this hobby about Kellners, and Im not sure I understand it. We have a range of 32 mm to 3 mm. Choose three focal lengths. Low focal ratio scopes deliver the light rays to the eyepiece at an ever-increasing angle as the focal ratio number goes down. Imagine you are looking at the moon with each of these eyepieces and consider what you would see. Again thank you very much for all the information in the page, excellent notes. I am a BIG fan of zoom eyepieces, especially if you dont have many. It appears to be a custom-made 90 degree binocular built from two 90 degree diagonals and binocular-size objectives attached in place of the usual OTA. What should one opt for a 2 EP over a 1.25? If youre still wondering between a Kellner vs Plossl, my advice to you would be invest a little extra cash and go for a good quality Plossl. A 20mm Plssl is probably worth it, if for no other reason than to compare the views it gives to the 21mm Hyperion you have. Be aware of the focal ratio of your scope. In simple terms, high focal ratio scopes, say those over F6, tend to be less demanding on eyepieces than those below F6. The bottom line is that it is best to have several magnification choices so you can optimize the view. And I continue to read excellent reports on the AT Paradigm and similar under different labels. I like my 38/70. https://telescopicwatch.com/orion-skyquest-xt8-intelliscope-review/. In the 1990s Meade instruments came up with a new design for the Meade 4000 line similar to Plossl that added a fifth glass element on top of the two pairs (4 total). At shorter focal lengths they have less eye relief, and at all focal lengths they have a narrower field of view, than newer types. Some brands will add better lens coating, darker edges, or a higher quality case to their Super Plossl products, but strictly for performance, there isnt a difference between the two. Ever since, I have been attempting to cram in every fact about the Universe, I can find into my head. They offer a 52-degree apparent field with clean, high-contrast images. The TFOV of the Hyperion will be greater than the TFOV of the Plssl, but the magnification will be about the same. Orion Sirius Plossl 10mm telescope eyepiece 1.25" in very good to excellent 185794462395 The only reason it's in this list because of its price and a long focal point. I do not miss beating my eyelashes against a 9.7mm Meade Plossl that I used to own. Finally, the worldwide pandemic has led to shortages and price jumps on many items. So, I am going to organize the guide around five questions and four formulas. A Plossl eyepiece has a lens thats plano-convex, which means it is flat on one side and convex on the other. Warranty Limited Warranty against defects in materials or workmanship for one year from date of purchase. I have used these in my F6 and F5 Dobs and find them a good value for the price. I started with the Celestron zoom. Eye relief is the distance from the eye lens to your eyeball, and the higher the better (within reason). This is a good thing, because normally the shorter the focal length of the eyepiece, the less eye relief you have. The ocular for your highest visual acuity - for viewing deep-sky objects and the like - should have an exit pupil around . If you wish to find a short-focal length eyepiece with a longer, more comfortable eye relief, you could use a long-focus eyepiece with a separate, high-quality barlow lens (an achromatic or apochromatic fully multi-coated barlow would be necessary), or you could purchase one of the several designs incorporating a smyth/barlow lens into the eyepiece design. At 32mm, a Plssl will give you as wide a field of view as any 1.25mm eyepiece can. A Barlow lens can save you money and add flexibility. I was just wondering if plossls are still worth it or should get a better eyepiece in a 30mm range. These will eventually be used in an 8in dob whenever it arrives. Just search on Astronomy Club and you will probably find one in your area. Tip Its almost always cheaper to buy directly from Agena Astro. It also was considerably more expensive. Even if we were next-door neighbors this would take weeks of discussion and planning. Is there much of a difference between the celestron and haader? No surprise there. A Plssl is probably as good as any 32mm eyepiece in a 1.25 inch focuser. The Baader offers wider fov, but at quite the price premium. Plus the FOV expands as you zoom to the higher powers. There are certainly much better options out there but at a significant cost. The atmosphere is typically the limiting factor as we get to higher magnifications. However, some lateral color error is apparent when looking at bright subjects, such as Jupiter or Venus, against a dark sky. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Our team of experts has reviewed and ranked 180+ telescopes based on price and quality. Worth is a subjective evaluation, so here is my subjective input: 1. Like going from a 32 TV to a 65? OHHH, now i get it! The zoom can be used with any 1.25 focuser too.