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Does anyone still make a low power eyepiece? (1 Viewer)

slingworks

Well-known member
Is there anyone, anywhere that still offers a fixed, low power eyepiece for a modern spotting scope?

Something around 15x?

Lots of older spotters from half a century ago were equipped with them but the lowest I have seen that is modern is the 20x that Kowa discontinued a few years ago....

I'd like to find something lower power with a wide field of view...
 
Really depends on your make of scope and the viability of finding an adapter that fits, probably more likely with an astro eyepiece.
 
Swarovski used to make a 20sw fixed power eyepiece that fits it’s current model 80mm and 65mm scopes. Sadly, Swarovski to my knowledge, no longer makes any fixed power eyepieces. One often sees the 30xSw for sale, but the 20xsw and the 45xsw have become extremely difficult to find. Most believe the high quality of the available zoom eyepieces render fixed power obsolete and inconvenient. They might be correct in Swarovski’s case.
 
Is there anyone, anywhere that still offers a fixed, low power eyepiece for a modern spotting scope?

Something around 15x?

I'd like to find something lower power with a wide field of view...

I have the Nikon EDG FieldScope 65. It has one of the largest range of low to fixed medium wide field eyepieces available. I use three of its lower range of eyepieces, the lowest providing a gorgeous 16x power. This eyepiece is very eyeglass friendly with a large comfortable eye lens. The Nikon EDG is in my opinion one of the nicest scopes one can purchase. Mainly sold now from Japan with huge discounts, some still can be found here in the states at half their original retail prices.
 
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It depens of your scope, which eypieces can reach focus (in infinity). And if an adapter for 1,25" is connecting with your scope. Some TeleVues or Baader Morpheus can e.g. work for reaching a big exit pupil. On my Zeiss Diascope I took a TV Plössl 40mm for watching Bubo bubo youngster near twilight, which leads to a 12x mag with 7mm EP. But I'm not shure if more magnification with less EP were better (with the 32mm Plössl), because in twilight my eye-pupil doen't open so wide. The TV-table is helpful (for my scope) if B minus F comes to values under 0.95 - all eyepieces with that value come to focus. The Morpheus-table uses mm, the TV inch.
Using of astro-ep is sometimes tricky, but leads to a wide low-power-field, if all parameter are right. You can search for long focal lenght ep, which are optimized for fast optics in refractors.

good decision
Manfred
 
I have Kowas with the 60mm eyepieces and 820x eyepieces.

I wouldn't mind picking up an Optolyth...The big 100mm scope is very intriguing.

I just prefer the lower mag eyepieces, 15x...20x something fixed.

The lowest I have for my modern Kowas is 25xLER.

I'd consider any new modern spotter if I could get a low (fixed) mag eyepiece.
 
If you want magnification around 15x, why not a binocular?

All wide-angle astronomical eyepieces with focal lengths long enough to give you similar magnifications on a birding scope will have 2" barrels, so cannot be adapted.
Among the 1.25" eyepieces, both a 24 mm Panoptic (68° afov) and a 32 mm Plössl (50° afov) have the maximum possible 27 mm field stops, which are larger than the plane glass "windows" in the bodies of most scopes, so even they will cause some vignetting.

John
 
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