The celestron and skywatcher eyepieces are exactly the same. They are all SMA variations of the kellner. The only real problem with the 25 is that the inside is shiny and can cause scatter and glow. The celestron 20 and 15 are pretty nice and are actually super wides, the 15 and 20 have the same size lenses and field stops so the 15 is the wider of the 2. Though there is also a celestron 20 dometop that has smaller lenses and a typical 50deg field. Even the meade 26 and 9 that came with the synta made light bridge 114 are the same as the sw and celestron 25/10 set. In pretty much all modern china/taiwan cases, the eyepieces are made by the same manufacturer of the scope, where the same eyepieces sold separately by the scope manufacturer can come from a diferent manufacturer. For example, the days where orion sirius plossl and celestron omni and kit plossls were made by gso, but the plossls that came with the scope were made by synta. And in that case the synta 25 and 10 plossls were better than the 26 and 9mm gsos sold under the same brands. Back to the celestron and skywatcher 10s that come with scopes, you can carve out the field stop to give a 70+ degree field. The glass and coatings are not as good as premium eyepieces, but being only 3 elements, they can let more light through and i have been able to get faint dsos to come through better on these, which also applies to the 2" 3 element GSO wide field eyepieces like what comes in the 2" kits, celestron e-lux and the light. Those generic silver top plossl eyepieces are made by synta and are very good, same optics as the sirius ans e lux plossl eyepieces that came with most orion scopes and celestron SCTs (though you only got the 25 or 40mm with rhe sct and not a 2nd eyepiece). They are some of the best plossls to ever come out of china. They arent quite like the japanese silvertop celestrons (vixen), or the old smoothside super plossls, or televue plossls, but they are quite close. Now the omni plossl line is made by synta and it is much improved, especially in the case of the 15mm, and the 4mm is a sleeper with a wide 65ish field of view, not advertised, but a nice surprise, also.very clean field stop, which was an issue on the GSO 15mm and 6mm in particular. There is a place and a use for these cheap eyepieces, they are ideal for public outreach when used on slow scopes, and I kept a set in my 8" ota case, a 40mm e-lux 2" and celestron 20mm and a widened out 10mm. I didnt have the 15mm back then. I found the 20mm to have noticeable better contrast and throughput on objects like m57, when compared to the 20mm QX that was in my outreach kit. This way, since the 8 and my cg5 lived in my car (and sometimes alao my stellarvue M3 az mount), I didn't have to plan for any inpromptu observing session since a basic set lived in the case. My gear was stolen out of storage in 2018 and I had to restart on the cheap with vintage fork/wedge C8 and M10 which were a deal i couldnt refuse for the 8, and a straight across trade for losmandy tripod/weights the tweakers didnt know to steal, for the 10. I got the original japanese prism diagonal and 26mm silvertop with the 8, and 4 or 5 super plossls with the 10. In the C8 case, I keep the 26st, a 2" 32mm E-lux, a generic synta 6.3mm plossl and an orion 10mm explorer 2 (metal bodied version of the 10mm super/sma), along with a 2" diagonal, and since I also have a focal reducer in the case, I keep a 1.25 visual back and the original prism diagonal in there since my only 2" SCT thread on diagonal has a jammed thread ring and is unusable. Those are a pain to rotate when you need to, so a 2" visual back and normal 2" diagonal is generally a better option. So the case is basically equipped with one nice vintage plossl and 3 budget class eyepieces. My astrola branded 40mm 2" (same as the 40mm e-lux I used to have), lives in my main eyepiece case because I have still not replaced my old japanese meade series 4000 SWA with a suitable japanese 40-42mm max field superwide. If and when I do, I may move the astrola into the celestron case since I much prefer a 40mm to a 32mm as a lowest power eyepiece in an SCT. I was toying with putting my 42mm superview in instead, but 2 aspergers/ocd reasons had me put the 32mm in there instead. 1, the celestron branding, and 2, my 42 had been in my #2 case that has "outreach/budget" eyepieces, including the whole set of various branded/generic UW80s, the big boy being the 2"30mm, and the 42 made much more sense to keep with that case rather than the much narrower 32mm e-lux, of basically the same focal length. That case does not have pluck foam, just a single divider that perfectly fits 3 2" eyepieces in bolt cases, and the rest of the case is chock full of bolt cases, some with 2 stacked eyepieces in there, ranging from the plastic SMAs, to plastic kellners, MH and SR atrocities, and some rarities like a plastic body "RK 20mm", a redundant japanese dometop 6mm ortho, since I have an edscorp branded version in my small case of mostly japanese orthos and plossls (case #4), and a rare but practically worthless 26mm ganymede wide angle, and 2 smaller sub cases, a black plastic celestron case filled with mostly celestron plossls and barlow, and a semi hard sunglass case with my set of 4 svbony WA/SWA. Case #3 is the old meade branded case that came with my 10, and I have since filled it with the rest of the japanese super plossls including the smoothside 56mm, all but the 40, 15 and 9.7 are 5 element, along with a japanese 140 2x 3 element tele extender. No chinese allowed in that case, and sometime in the distant future I hope all are 5 element, but I haven't been looking at classifieds in the last few years since I can't spend money anymore. Now I am debating putting the 6mm ortho in with the C8 instead of the 6.3 plossl... it makes sense being a vintage japanese eyepiece to compliment the silvertop, and it is the lone japanese eyepiece in the other case. Doesn't aspergers suck? I will close with saying I have been able to get ridiculously sharp and contrasty views of saturn with that hated SR4 eyepiece. As long as you keep it dead in the center because outside of maybe 10'15 degrees, edge abberations especially false color set in, but that was at f5. I will have to try it at f10 next time i set up one of the scts if the moon or a planet is up. Since it is an otherwise worthless eyepiece, I am going to keep it for occasional planet use. I used to have an astrotech 4mm premium plossl, but now the only thing I have close to that focal length is a 4.7mm 5k UWA, which is practically a 5mm anyway.
.965 . . . I've had that number engraved into my mind for decades, since I was 15 and had my Tasco 520x 60mm telescope, which had .965 accessories and adapters and eyepieces, including a very powerful 3x barlow lens. The alt-az mount was a little shakey but I fell in love with the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus with it
When you start looking for things that arent there, that could be a sign of a neurological disorder and something companies capitolize on by offering you a $800 eyepiece you need to "find" what you're looking for...
@deepspacehunter what you get is better quality glass and coatings for that extra 5%. What is far greater than that extra 5% that you get, are wider fields, well corrected for fast telescopes, and in many cases much better eye relief. And it doesn't take a neurological disorder for that to make a difference. And there are budget clones of the once premium only eyepieces thay give you that for as little to $100-200 now
Good for outreach. Use these when you know lots of people with no experience with eyepieces will look through your scope. Why jeopardize a $300 eyepiece, when these will do?👍 I have also learned not to knock Chinese technology. It keeps improving.
I have one Baader EP a 6mm Orthoscopic with 52 degree fov. For some reason it was dimmer than my 6mm uwa 66 Degree Starguider. A 4 element Ortho should be brighter and clearer than a 6 element wide angle long ER, but not in this case. All I can figure out is that according to some other reviewers it isn't an Ortho at all, but a Zeiss construction hence the 52 degree fov instead of an Ortho's 44-48. My Taks and Fujiyama's run 44 to 48 degrees fov and are bright and clear. That Baader wasn't cheap, the 6mm Starguider was and it is brighter, clearer and a wider fov. Edit; Next time I'll ask what does Zeiss construction mean? edit; May of 2023 Zeiss is supposed to be an old Abbe Ortho build, but it is still too dim. I have a 17mm Kellner that is great for a full view of the moon with a polarizing filter to tone the brightness down exactly where I want it and it is sharp and quite clear.
I am pretty new to telescopes too, but I think I know what you mean: first, you have to use that diagonal / mirror prism thing first and then put the eyepiece in it. And then if you look to the object straight (standing straight against it) and with your eye looking from the top down, the image will not be upside down. And I assume you are talking about daytime objects that are not in the sky, right? Because in the sky there is no really up or down :) Or a "correct" angle. If you are just watching. Unless you try to see constellations in the same angle to find some objects? If you need photos with the "right" angle you can always flip them afterwards. :) But would be interesting to learn if that angle is important also for the night sky.
The celestron and skywatcher eyepieces are exactly the same. They are all SMA variations of the kellner. The only real problem with the 25 is that the inside is shiny and can cause scatter and glow.
The celestron 20 and 15 are pretty nice and are actually super wides, the 15 and 20 have the same size lenses and field stops so the 15 is the wider of the 2. Though there is also a celestron 20 dometop that has smaller lenses and a typical 50deg field. Even the meade 26 and 9 that came with the synta made light bridge 114 are the same as the sw and celestron 25/10 set. In pretty much all modern china/taiwan cases, the eyepieces are made by the same manufacturer of the scope, where the same eyepieces sold separately by the scope manufacturer can come from a diferent manufacturer. For example, the days where orion sirius plossl and celestron omni and kit plossls were made by gso, but the plossls that came with the scope were made by synta. And in that case the synta 25 and 10 plossls were better than the 26 and 9mm gsos sold under the same brands.
Back to the celestron and skywatcher 10s that come with scopes, you can carve out the field stop to give a 70+ degree field. The glass and coatings are not as good as premium eyepieces, but being only 3 elements, they can let more light through and i have been able to get faint dsos to come through better on these, which also applies to the 2" 3 element GSO wide field eyepieces like what comes in the 2" kits, celestron e-lux and the light.
Those generic silver top plossl eyepieces are made by synta and are very good, same optics as the sirius ans e lux plossl eyepieces that came with most orion scopes and celestron SCTs (though you only got the 25 or 40mm with rhe sct and not a 2nd eyepiece). They are some of the best plossls to ever come out of china.
They arent quite like the japanese silvertop celestrons (vixen), or the old smoothside super plossls, or televue plossls, but they are quite close.
Now the omni plossl line is made by synta and it is much improved, especially in the case of the 15mm, and the 4mm is a sleeper with a wide 65ish field of view, not advertised, but a nice surprise, also.very clean field stop, which was an issue on the GSO 15mm and 6mm in particular.
There is a place and a use for these cheap eyepieces, they are ideal for public outreach when used on slow scopes, and I kept a set in my 8" ota case, a 40mm e-lux 2" and celestron 20mm and a widened out 10mm. I didnt have the 15mm back then. I found the 20mm to have noticeable better contrast and throughput on objects like m57, when compared to the 20mm QX that was in my outreach kit.
This way, since the 8 and my cg5 lived in my car (and sometimes alao my stellarvue M3 az mount), I didn't have to plan for any inpromptu observing session since a basic set lived in the case.
My gear was stolen out of storage in 2018 and I had to restart on the cheap with vintage fork/wedge C8 and M10 which were a deal i couldnt refuse for the 8, and a straight across trade for losmandy tripod/weights the tweakers didnt know to steal, for the 10.
I got the original japanese prism diagonal and 26mm silvertop with the 8, and 4 or 5 super plossls with the 10.
In the C8 case, I keep the 26st, a 2" 32mm E-lux, a generic synta 6.3mm plossl and an orion 10mm explorer 2 (metal bodied version of the 10mm super/sma), along with a 2" diagonal, and since I also have a focal reducer in the case, I keep a 1.25 visual back and the original prism diagonal in there since my only 2" SCT thread on diagonal has a jammed thread ring and is unusable. Those are a pain to rotate when you need to, so a 2" visual back and normal 2" diagonal is generally a better option.
So the case is basically equipped with one nice vintage plossl and 3 budget class eyepieces. My astrola branded 40mm 2" (same as the 40mm e-lux I used to have), lives in my main eyepiece case because I have still not replaced my old japanese meade series 4000 SWA with a suitable japanese 40-42mm max field superwide. If and when I do, I may move the astrola into the celestron case since I much prefer a 40mm to a 32mm as a lowest power eyepiece in an SCT.
I was toying with putting my 42mm superview in instead, but 2 aspergers/ocd reasons had me put the 32mm in there instead. 1, the celestron branding, and 2, my 42 had been in my #2 case that has "outreach/budget" eyepieces, including the whole set of various branded/generic UW80s, the big boy being the 2"30mm, and the 42 made much more sense to keep with that case rather than the much narrower 32mm e-lux, of basically the same focal length.
That case does not have pluck foam, just a single divider that perfectly fits 3 2" eyepieces in bolt cases, and the rest of the case is chock full of bolt cases, some with 2 stacked eyepieces in there, ranging from the plastic SMAs, to plastic kellners, MH and SR atrocities, and some rarities like a plastic body "RK 20mm", a redundant japanese dometop 6mm ortho, since I have an edscorp branded version in my small case of mostly japanese orthos and plossls (case #4), and a rare but practically worthless 26mm ganymede wide angle, and 2 smaller sub cases, a black plastic celestron case filled with mostly celestron plossls and barlow, and a semi hard sunglass case with my set of 4 svbony WA/SWA.
Case #3 is the old meade branded case that came with my 10, and I have since filled it with the rest of the japanese super plossls including the smoothside 56mm, all but the 40, 15 and 9.7 are 5 element, along with a japanese 140 2x 3 element tele extender. No chinese allowed in that case, and sometime in the distant future I hope all are 5 element, but I haven't been looking at classifieds in the last few years since I can't spend money anymore.
Now I am debating putting the 6mm ortho in with the C8 instead of the 6.3 plossl... it makes sense being a vintage japanese eyepiece to compliment the silvertop, and it is the lone japanese eyepiece in the other case. Doesn't aspergers suck?
I will close with saying I have been able to get ridiculously sharp and contrasty views of saturn with that hated SR4 eyepiece. As long as you keep it dead in the center because outside of maybe 10'15 degrees, edge abberations especially false color set in, but that was at f5. I will have to try it at f10 next time i set up one of the scts if the moon or a planet is up.
Since it is an otherwise worthless eyepiece, I am going to keep it for occasional planet use. I used to have an astrotech 4mm premium plossl, but now the only thing I have close to that focal length is a 4.7mm 5k UWA, which is practically a 5mm anyway.
You should make some more astronomy/telescope videos. You describe things well.
.965 . . . I've had that number engraved into my mind for decades, since I was 15 and had my Tasco 520x 60mm telescope, which had .965 accessories and adapters and eyepieces, including a very powerful 3x barlow lens. The alt-az mount was a little shakey but I fell in love with the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus with it
Great video! Thank you. Helps me out with my eyepiece selection.
ya i would use these for people just starting out not knowing if they will stay in hobby or out reach star parties.
Great presentation, thanks for sharing
Searching for that last 5% of performance will be extremely expensive in just about any hobby.
I cannot bring myself to spend more for an eyepiece than for my telescope. I haven't reached $200 yet.
When you start looking for things that arent there, that could be a sign of a neurological disorder and something companies capitolize on by offering you a $800 eyepiece you need to "find" what you're looking for...
@deepspacehunter what you get is better quality glass and coatings for that extra 5%.
What is far greater than that extra 5% that you get, are wider fields, well corrected for fast telescopes, and in many cases much better eye relief. And it doesn't take a neurological disorder for that to make a difference.
And there are budget clones of the once premium only eyepieces thay give you that for as little to $100-200 now
Good for outreach. Use these when you know lots of people with no experience with eyepieces will look through your scope. Why jeopardize a $300 eyepiece, when these will do?👍 I have also learned not to knock Chinese technology. It keeps improving.
I really enjoyed your video. Thank you very much. By the way, where did you get the storage containers?.
I have one Baader EP a 6mm Orthoscopic with 52 degree fov. For some reason it was dimmer than my 6mm uwa 66 Degree Starguider. A 4 element Ortho should be brighter and clearer than a 6 element wide angle long ER, but not in this case. All I can figure out is that according to some other reviewers it isn't an Ortho at all, but a Zeiss construction hence the 52 degree fov instead of an Ortho's 44-48. My Taks and Fujiyama's run 44 to 48 degrees fov and are bright and clear. That Baader wasn't cheap, the 6mm Starguider was and it is brighter, clearer and a wider fov. Edit; Next time I'll ask what does Zeiss construction mean? edit; May of 2023
Zeiss is supposed to be an old Abbe Ortho build, but it is still too dim.
I have a 17mm Kellner that is great for a full view of the moon with a polarizing filter to tone the brightness down exactly where I want it and it is sharp and quite clear.
I think the baader classic orthos might be Chinese made, and a bit of a scam, japanese orthos are better for sure
I have had a life philosophy that has always served me well. NEVER buy the cheapest……buy the second cheapest.
I have celestron 70az and I see image upside down what can I do to correct it and what r the best lenses to observe the moon
I am pretty new to telescopes too, but I think I know what you mean: first, you have to use that diagonal / mirror prism thing first and then put the eyepiece in it. And then if you look to the object straight (standing straight against it) and with your eye looking from the top down, the image will not be upside down. And I assume you are talking about daytime objects that are not in the sky, right? Because in the sky there is no really up or down :) Or a "correct" angle. If you are just watching. Unless you try to see constellations in the same angle to find some objects? If you need photos with the "right" angle you can always flip them afterwards. :) But would be interesting to learn if that angle is important also for the night sky.
Ah and for the moon 25mm is better than 10mm. So better is to see more and less magnified for the moon. But for planets better more magnification.