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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Let's have a eyepiece roundup. (1 Viewer)

Sout Fork

Well-known member
Because the Pentax scopes are more or less unique in being able to accept generic 1.25 inch eyepieces it would be interesting to know what EP's others have tried to use on their Pentax scopes. Both those that have worked and those that have not. It would be especially interesting to know about low cost EP’s that give good results and those that have not.

For my part I’m using an Orion Stratus 17mm and 13mm and an Celestron X-cel 10mm. I have found the Orion’s to be excellent for general field birding-a wide clear field of view and just as important a very easy forgiving view. The Orions have a 1.25 inch eye lens so you have little problem with blackouts. Just get your eye near the eye piece and you will see something. The 10mm, while bright and sharp, blacks out and is not suited for field birding. Blackouts may not be such a big deal in Astronomy but when watching moving wildlife it’s a real pain in the a**.

Also I find my 80mm Pentax pretty much limited to 40x or below at least for really first rate viewing. Above 40x I think you are losing more in quality than you are gaining in magnification. This works out ok because in general a first rate 20-40x scope is all anyone needs for real world nature study.

Just one man’s opinion.

Any one else?
 
I use pentax xl 7mm, xw14 ,xw20,.nagler9mm,supervue 15mm & the pentax 8-24 zoom .I just recieved today an astro engineering 8-24 zoom & nikon 4500 cp camera .This seems to be an exellent EP & it screws onto camera [28mm thread]& go,s into the scope.up till now everything i try works in the pf 80 & 60.this EP is at least as good as the pentax or vixen zooms.I got it used but i believe its cheaper than the other two.
Brian.
 
I use a Televue 25mm Plossl and a Swarovski 15.4mm telescope eyepiece for digiscoping on the Swarovski scopes (with the telescope eyepiece adapter ). The Eye Relief on the Swarovski makes it a better choice for digiscoping but the quality of both are good.Neil.
 
I have tried other eye pieces but my favourites are the XW10, XW14 and XW20. The only drawback is the weight. I sold my PF80ED and bought the PF65ED AN. I have no regrets. Bruno.
 
I've posted about my experience with eyepieces in detail elsewhere on this forum, so I'll just summarize briefly (all used on on my PF65ED):

Vixen 8-24 zoom - works well
Chinese clone 8-24 zoom - good EP for the price, but not quite as good as the Vixen/Televue zoom; slightly less FOV at wide angle, slightly harder to view through, slightly less sharp, etc.
GSO Superview 15mm - insufficient eye relief for use with glasses, which rules it out for me; those who don't wear glasses may love it.
Celestron Ultima Barlow - doesn't work; won't allow focus past about 300 feet.
Celestron X-Cel Barlow - works if hacked (see thread below); jury is still out on the optical quality achieved at higher magnifications.

Zack
 
I have a pentax XW20mm, Orion stratus 13mm and DCL-28(24mm). For general birding I prefer the XW20. For handheld digiscoping I'm using the orion 13mm with a fuji S5100 (no vignetting at wide angle). The DCL-28 is great for digiscoping with my CP4500 although sometimes the magnification is not enough.
If I had to choose one to keep, I'll keep the XW20 to wich I can also attach the CP4500 with a step-up ring as it has a 43mm thread. Jose Navarrete
 
Pentax, Nagler, Televue, Swarovski?...

It must be nice to be able, and willing, to spend $300 a pop for an eyepiece.

The problem is that it is not particularly useful or helpful to say that a $300 eyepiece is a good eyepiece. I already know that. If you throw enough money at a problem you will eventually solve it.

What about something less than a designer lens?

For instance yesterday I spent the day doing a raptor survey with an empoyee of the Fish and Wildlife service. We were on a very high bluff overlooking the Mississippi river. Our viewing range was 1/4 mile out to, perhaps, 3 miles. He had a Televue 85mm of some sort. He had quite an assortment of eyepieces with him. All government property by the way.

Anyway he was called back to his office and asked me to keep an eye on his equipment while he was gone. I asked him if I could try a few of his eyepieces on my scope while he was gone and he said sure knock yourself out.

In his kit was a Pentax XW20mm ($300+shipping form Eagle Optics). It just so happend that I had just recieved a Orion Expanse 20mm clone ($39 delivered to my door) the day before. So I compared them.

The long and the short of it:
Most obvious difference-better (but not stunningly better) contrast on the Pentax.
Brighter (but not stunningly brighter on the Expanse).
View was a little more comfortable on the Pentax.
Viewing an adult Bald Eagle perched in a tree about 3/4 miles away centered in eyepiece my eyes could see no difference in clarity. I could identify what I was looking at just as well in either eyepice. While the Pentax may have been better out on the edges it made no practical difference for the kind of viewing I was doing at the time.

Was the Pentax better?-yes.
Was there any real-world practical difference between the two at least on this occasion?-No.

The result of the comparision was to confirm to me that, for all practical purposes, the 39 buck eyepiece was a very decent piece of glass that works very well in the Pentex. I'm a happy camper.

One man's opinion...

Good birding.
 
Hi Sout Fork
A question for you. Does the orion expanse has a thread under the rubber eyeguard and if so what is the diameter? Do you do any digiscoping??
 
I agree with Sout Fork.For daytime viewing the cheaper EP,s are fine .I use superview & burgess EP,s I have pentax & televue but i,m pretty clumsy & cant afford to drop them when its cold & wet .I also use orion expanse & for a wide view for finding an orion highlite 26mm. they may be slightly below the high end EP,s but work fine for daylite terrestial work.
Brian.
 
I thought of another way of expressing my conclusion about my little eyepiece comparison:

Assuming I had no preconcieved notions about which eyepiece should be the better eyepiece and only knew that the pentax cost $300 dollars and was worth every penny of it and the Expanse was of unknown price. Then I would assume, based on what I saw through the eyepieces, that the Expanse was about a $250 eyepiece.

BTW- I'm not into bottom feeding for it's own sake.
I own Zeiss 7x42 and Leica 8x32 binos. Both of them, when I bought them, (over ten years ago) were clearly better than anything else in their class and were worth it so I payed the price.

The Zeiss have aged very nicely. After 15 years or so there still is not anything new on the market that would make me want to give up by beloved Zeiss.
Wide, bright, sharp field of view, perfect balance, and extremly easy view.
After all these years of using them I still marvel at how well spent that original $900 was.
 
I use the 8-24mm Chinese "clone" and the Pentax XF12 eyepieces. I'm looking for a new eyepiece in the 20-25mm range for digiscoping and will probably go for a Vixen LV (about $90 in Japan).

I've also been looking for a zoom in the 6-19mm range but have only found the Pentax XF one (which is too expensive and has insufficient eye-relief) and the Orion (which is way cheaper but doesn't appear to ship to Japan).

There are lots of cheap eyepieces going on e-bay as well as good value ones made by Orion, Scopetronix etc. It gets a bit confusing. When I get the Vixen LV 20mm I may decide 3 is plenty enough................
 
pf 65 ed eyepieces

I bought the scope(pf 65 ed) from a friend ,almost new . It came with the pentax XF zoom .The zoom delivers20-60X and is a good looking eyepiece with smooth zooming action and a very nice view at 20x,the eye relief was already short at that power and nothing short of unacceptable at anything higher ...it was a lot of work to look through.I think ,though ,that the field of view was pretty good for a zoom.I also had the same problem with short eyerelief with the GSO 15mm and i dont thing i was able to focus at infinite without glasses with that eyepiece.Same problem with the scopetronix MAXview in that focal lenght..no focus at infinite.I Bought the Swarovski 7.7 -23.1 astro zoom and had the same problem ,no focus at infinite.But i like the eyepiece so much that i was determined to resolve the problem..i needed to modified a bit the eyepiece and also replace the compression ring on the scope to be able to reach infinite at 17X (with my eyeglasses on;at higher powers it gets better and i can reach it without eyeglasses).the field of view is tipically narrow ,although im used to it now ,and the view at 52X(max power)is just amazing,with plenty of eyerelief ,easy views and incredible contrast.From17X to 30X, is Superb,with no CA up to 20-30 and only nominal amounts of CA all the way to 40X..i also find the 17-52X range a really nice compromise for a 65mm scope,Versus 15-45x or 20x60x options .
 
Last edited:
mayoayo said:
I Bought the Swarovski 7.7 -23.1 astro zoom ...

Where did you get the Swarovski astro zoom, and how much was it? I'm probably confused about this, but I thought that a Swarovski zoom designed for their own scopes was fitted with a 1.25" mount and sold by Meade for a few years, then discontinued some time ago. I wasn't aware of any Swarovski zoom available new with a 1.25" mount.

Thanks,
Zack
 
zack2 said:
Where did you get the Swarovski astro zoom, and how much was it? I'm probably confused about this, but I thought that a Swarovski zoom designed for their own scopes was fitted with a 1.25" mount and sold by Meade for a few years, then discontinued some time ago. I wasn't aware of any Swarovski zoom available new with a 1.25" mount.

Thanks,
Zack

I also would like to know where to purchase & the price of a swarovski EP that will work with Pentax pf scopes please.
Brian.
 
You are right...the swarovski Astro Zoom is the astro version of the older zoom..It was sold by Meade for a while as the 4000series zoom ,but i have read that they werent able to keep up with the cost of production.It was also sold with the Swarovski brand.I got mine from Astromart ,and i paid 185$ for a used/mint unit.I believe ,though,that adapters are available for the newer versions,as well as for other brands like leica or ?Zeiss?
 
I believe that APM telescopes (www.apm-telescopes.de) sells astro-modified versions of the Swarovski, Zeiss, Leica and Nikon zooms. They would probably be able to tell which would reach focus with the Pentax scopes as well.

Kimmo
 
A few more questions...

well, actually, first: thanks to you all for all the advice in this forum. For someone like me who's just thinking about getting their first spotting scope, its been pretty educational!

I have a few questions about all the different eyepieces available for Pentax scopes:
1) A variety of astronomical eyepieces have been recommended. I'm guessing that all of these are not waterproofed in any way. How big a disadvantage is this (yes I'm stuck in a fairly wet climate, but then so are a lot of you using these eyepieces)? When you buy the scope body, having it waterproofed is a major selling point (one of the main reasons why the astronomical scopes are not always recommended for birding, right?). Why does this not apply to the eyepieces? (Sorry if this is stupid, I really am new to this!).

2) I'm considering getting a package including the 65mm scope + the Pentax zoom lens, because I found a good offer, and I don't need glasses at all, yet, wrt eye relief. Therefore, I'd also like to invest in one fixed eyepiece for digiscoping, and out of curiosity from the positive reviews they've received here (so far, I've only used zoom eyepieces). As an all-round eyepiece (price range up to $200) , what would you recommend? I'm intrigued by the Vixen Laudanum Wide range, but I haven't seen much discussion of them here.

3) If I don't get the Pentax scope, I will probably get the Zeiss Diascope 65mm (and make a bigger hole in my bank account...). Therefore, another combination that sprung to mind was the following: Pentax 65mm body + Zeiss zoom eyepiece + Zeiss eyepiece converter to 1.25". Without excessive bargain-hunting, I reckon that this will still only cost 60-70% of a brand-new Zeiss. Given some of the comments I have read about eyepieces being the critical factor in the end, and the positive reviews of the Pentax body, I am wondering whether this would basically result in me getting a scope as good as a Zeiss for substantially cheaper. I've also read that I might have some problems with focusing: would I be able to overcome them?

Well, this is only my second posting on this web-site. Forgive me if my questions are not very clear!

Rob
 
Rob,
With the Swarovski telescope eyepiece adapter it acts like a close-up converter in 35mm terms. You can focus the scope closer but you lose distance focus . The Swarovski range goes from 6 meters to infinity normally but with the converter on it is approx. 5 meters to 30 meters. I actually prefer this as this is the range that I normally digiscope and closer is always better in photography. I'm thinking of getting the Swarovski 65 mm scope as it focuses to 3 meters. Neil.
 
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