25mm Celestron X-Cel LX

[Shorty Barlow]

The Celestron X-Cel LX has an apparent field of view of 60º. There are six internal elements. I have no information on the amount of groups. The eyepiece body is made of black anodised aluminium with orange and white lettering. Celestron declares that it has a 16mm eye relief. They also claim the X-Cel LX are parfocal with the others in the range. Although this is not strictly true in my experience with them. I paid £109 for the 25mm last year.



The housing (including barrel) is approximately 85mm in length and 95mm with the twist-up eyeguard extended. It has a generous eye lens and I make the field stop about 26mm. The housing sports a novel equatorial treaded rubber grip reminiscent of a tractor tyre. The barrel includes a filter thread, adequate baffling and a shallow undercut. The eyepiece weighs around 170g according to my scales and is supplied with its own bolt case.



I now own several X-Cel LX eyepieces. About seven years ago I acquired the 9mm.



It was the first X-Cel LX I bought. As it had a 60º FOV I tended to use it predominantly as a planetary eyepiece. It was only years later that I discovered just how good the 9mm X-Cel was for rich field observing, particularly in short tube refractors.



The original Celestron X-Cel eyepiece range were reputedly among the worst designed eyepieces in the world. They were not particularly successful. Celestron eventually released a new range with the same X-Cel brand name but with the letters ‘LX’ added. So, no confusion there then! These LX versions generally have a very good reputation. Although I have had quality control problems with them in the past. Three or four years ago I had to return three 7mm focal length LX’s consecutively due to visible debris in the field. This was a known problem with some other focal lengths as well. Apparently due to a bad batch. I’ve not had the same problem with recent purchases.



X-Cel LX eye lens dust caps are very close fitting. This seems to be the same throughout the range. The upside is that the cap won’t come off if the eyepiece is in your pocket. The downside is that you may lose a fingernail trying to remove the cap in the first place. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. The field lens caps are fine.



I got first light with the 25mm X-Cel LX in my 72ED DS Pro Evostar. It gave 16.8x for (about) 3º, 34’ FOV with a 4.3mm exit pupil. My main observing was in the Summer Triangle and the rich star fields within and around it. Collinder 399 (Coathanger Cluster), M57, M29 and M27 were all duly observed. I used an Explore Scientific broadband OIII filter for the Dumbbell/Applecore Nebula and the Veil Nebula. The overall sharpness and colour separation were superb. It is a well corrected eyepiece and showed very little edge astigmatism and no lateral colour. I’d say it had a slight edge on my 25mm TS Optics Planetary HR which has a similar field of 58º. I found the eye placement excellent and with no ergonomic problems, although the 16mm eye relief is a little long for me. The twist-up eyeguard helped with ameliorating this somewhat. I’ve always liked the X-Cel eyeguards. They have an elegant simplicity that works well during actual observing.



Overall this is an enjoyable eyepiece to use and I specifically bought it for the 72ED, primarily due to its comparatively light weight. It’s definitely a keeper.

[JayTee]

This was my go-to eyepiece for everything except planetary from 2012 to 2018. It got so much use the rubber guard to the extendable eyecup came off and is now probably in the lost toy box. But it still works even without the rubber eye guard protector. It was replaced by the Explorer Scientific 2" 30 mm 82° FOV EP. Because it is a 2" EP, it works only in a limited number of my scopes, so it is not as universally usable as the ExCel LX 25 mm 1.25" EP.

I also recommend this EP for beginner / intermediate users. It's price versus performance is hard to beat.

[Shorty Barlow]

It is pretty good value for the cost.

[Bigzmey]

They are definitely good beginner EPs. X-Cel LX were my first upgrade form stock Plossls, boy what a difference!

If one is looking to buy brand new, after recent price hikes AT Paradigm Dual ED (and clones) offer better (performance to price) value.

However, at used prices X-Cel LXs are still very attractive buy.

[Shorty Barlow]

I have a 25mm BST StarGuider but it showed a fair amount of edge astigmatism for rich field in my f/5.8 Evostar.



This 25mm TS Optics 'Planetary' though was actually quite well corrected considering it is marketed as a planetary eyepiece. There is a story, probably apocryphal, that the manufacturer (BST?) misread the order and it should have originally been a 2.5mm eyepiece. Apparently the 25mm version worked out so well they kept it in production.

[Richard]

Yes the Celestron X-Cel XL are good have a few , I still have the old 10mm Celestron X-Cel , I purchased it many years ago thinking it must be better that my cheap Plossl but was not great